


I Only Write About You

by PoemsandRoses



Category: Tegan and Sara (Band)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Fluff, Music, Smut, love and romance, quincest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2017-02-05
Packaged: 2018-06-03 06:51:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6601081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoemsandRoses/pseuds/PoemsandRoses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The only way they could speak to each other with the barriers of society was through the music and the art they created. They wrote, they composed, they thought, they created - they did it all for each other; they communicated through music. Sara strove to deliver her feelings through metaphors, her love through images, her emotions through melodies; meanwhile Tegan was the braver one - her words honest, her emotions clear, her feelings never hidden. This contradiction between their personalities and the complex relationship they had made them who they are today, shaped their music into a form of inner monologue between two people trying to reach each other despite the difficulties surrounding them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. If It Was You

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! You probably know me from Halo, Impediments, and Catharsis. I have already talked about writing this story on Tumblr but didn't think I'd post it here. However, Fanfcition can be a little bit tricky and does not let me respond to reviews publicly so I decided to start fresh here, especially that I have not written something like that before and ff have a policy of writing about fictional characters only. I really hope you give this one a chance and give me a feedback. I have made a lot of theories about their music and how everything went down so I hope you wouldn't judge me, especially that I basically wrote the song If It Was You in a very bad way to serve my purpose. Thank you so much.

Songs. Lyrics. Vocals. Guitars. Keyboards...Music. Her whole life revolved around music. Her entire existence revolved around creating art for strangers and making money out of it. It was her job. Her career. Her profession. Music was the way she made money in order to survive. It was also a way to pay the bills, and make more music to sell more and then pay the taxes. Taxes, taxes, taxes...it was the nightmare that woke her up each morning, it was the voice of the birds on her window (except it was an ugly, unpleasant melody). How come she was still broke? How come she couldn't afford a decent place in a new town? Goddamn capitalism, it demanded poverty on her being till she died.

But that was not her problem. That was not her issue. That was not why she had been miserable since the day she was conceived and divided into another half. The fact she had to split into another half was the entire issue. She would have been better off as one person, as a whole, as an entity, as an independent strong woman who did not suffer aggressive feelings of emptiness and longing. Sadly, this part had its own entity and it existed on its own. Well, it was a she, another her, one who everybody thought has been conceived first and felt sorry for her egg so she split herself in half. Bullshit, Sara thought. She knew she was the oldest; she made all the decisions and was the one mentally stronger, even if Tegan was physically stronger.

The problem lay within her, inside her, in her heart, inside her skull, in the chemicals that formed her brain. The problem was Tegan. The issue was this human being. The need was Tegan. The beauty was Tegan. The universe was Tegan. The songs were Tegan. The lyrics were Tegan. The words were Tegan. The images were Tegan. The art was Tegan. The stories were Tegan. The memories were Tegan.

Tegan, Tegan, Tegan...

Sara screamed. She couldn't handle it anymore. Her hot tears covered her flushed face, erasing its cold paleness, erasing its vital grief. Her face looked hot, heated, angry, and red. She tore up another page of her notebook and threw it away. She sighed exasperatedly. She looked at the stash of torn up pages and smudged blue ink all over her hands and sleeves. Writer's block was the worst. She hated it so much. She had been dealing with it since she moved in. Why, God, why? Why couldn't she form a verse, a line, a sentence, a phrase...a word? Why couldn't she even find a word? She had been always the best with words. Her sister was known for her deep, raspy vocals, but she was the one who was always praised for her ability to come up with enchanting words that swayed her fans, friends, and family. She was the one who carved art on paper, who created a masterpiece from a single word, who told stories and wrote sadness the way it should be written. She was the one who wrote a poem every week and published it in a local newspaper, hoping her sister would find it, read it, smile and love her. She was the one who poured her heart and soul into writing the most passionate song she had ever written and it ended up not being on the record because of the explicit material it contained. Since when was love so explicit?! It was all funny to her.

She was the queen of words, yet she couldn't scribble anything. Maybe college was the option. Perhaps her career was done. Maybe the days when words flowed freely out of her heart, danced on her tongue, and froze on her pages were gone. Maybe she couldn't do it anymore, not after this step she had taken. Well, she had enough. She was tired.

She was always tired.

Goddamn it.

God fucking dman it, she wanted to scream.

She only cried.

_If it was you/ If it was you/ If you were the one in my bed that night/ If these were your clothes on my floor that night/ I would have made sweet love to you/ I would have died caressing the skin that hugged you._

_But it was not you/ It was a face that looked a lot like you/ It was the dark moon stabbing the sun in your eyes/ It was the body that was too tense between my hands/ It was the fake softness and the sickening cries._

_She looked like you, but she was not you/ If only it was you/ If only it was you touching my skin/ If only it was you kissing my flesh/ If only it was you that I arched for/ If it was you I wouldn't have run away/ I wouldn't have made you cry_.

When she thought of it, the song was stupid. She used simple words, but her heart used complex emotions. Nothing was simple and tacky about love. So what she used simple words and easy language? Love itself was a complicated game, especially to her. Why couldn’t she simplify it through her honest emotions? If only it was Tegan, if only it was her who was destined to be her love, she wouldn't have run away.

It was like she had predicted what was going to happen through the song. Well, she had been already planning to leave. Tegan had written “You Went Away” and “City Girl”. Tegan had seen it coming, even if these songs were metaphorical and mostly centered on her running away after a fight...or a dark night full of dark thoughts and dark romance.

If only it was her.

Songs, songs, songs. Songs made up her whole life. She had to vent and share and write and tell her stories. She was a storyteller, a creator, a magician, a writer, an author, a poet, a lover, a fool. Without the power of words, she would have exploded into tiny million pieces of suppressed emotions and repressed love. Her pen was her weapon and her pages were her battlefield. Her mind was her tactician and her words were her bullets. If she couldn't say it out loud, she wrote it down. If she couldn't voice it, she scribbled it. If she couldn't be honest about it, she shaped it into a metaphor. If she couldn't describe it, she gave it an image. If she couldn't touch, she fantasized. If she couldn't love, she sang. But she always thought that what if she could? What if she did? What if it was...her?

_Sister, why couldn’t it be you?/ It’s one life and we can’t live another/ It’s one feeling and I can’t feel it for another/ Sister, let me be your devoting worshiper/ In pious fidelity I would make love to you/ If it was you._

The song seemed like a poem, which was a problem. These lines had to be removed before being exposed to anybody but Tegan. Even though she removed them, the song still didn’t make it. Something was off; it was a poem.

Sara got up. There was just no point. Nothing was coming out of her heart or mind or lungs. She wanted and needed the woman on her mind. Why was she so stupid? Why did she run away and hide? She wanted that sweet touch and she needed to give the sweetness a little roughness with her own touches. She missed hearing those melodious moans that watered the area between her thighs.

She plopped down on the couch, huffing loudly in the small, cold apartment. She started crying. She closed her eyes and cried and cried and cried. Her need was fiery and too ambitious. Her need couldn’t wait so she sought for the act she had been doing more than one time each day. Sometimes she spent hours in bed doing it over and over and over till her clit twitched and ached, and her core screamed for mercy.

Sara unzipped her grey hoodie and lifted up her wife beater, exposing goosebumped pale skin and hard rosy nipples. She pushed her hands in the front of her grey sweatpants. A hiss left the pout of her lips when one hand squeezed a nipple and the other hurried forming quick, unorganized circles on her clit. When she made love or fucked, her moves were in sync and her touches were well thought of. But when she masturbated, she moved messily and touched randomly, and quickly switched from an area to the other.

She pushed two fingers in herself, roughly, without any care that she might hurt her walls with her unclipped nails. She was fast and hard on herself. The heel of her palm pressed on the swollen bud as her digits went in and out in quick motion. The other hand was rotating one nipple or pinching the other. She closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. Sweat trilled down her temples and tears rained down her closed lids.

She imagined her. She imagined Tegan. She imagined her touches; they were so different from this. Tegan was sweet and sensual. Even when she was dirty and playful, she remained gentle and careful. Sara’s skin was tender and sensitive and it needed the utmost care, but she did not want to give that to herself because she didn’t deserve it. She was punishing herself. Tegan would have licked her nipples softly and slowly, but she was pinching the hardened buds to increase the pain she wasn’t able to bear. She was lucky she was so wet; otherwise she would have been badly hurt. Tegan would have never done that. None of her lovers would have done that. Even Katina, that motherfucker who destroyed her fucking life.

She cried more at the thought of the girl who broke her heart. That was another reason she had run away. She pushed more, angrily and frustratingly. She imagined Tegan’s heavy breasts: the way they swayed when she rode her and the way they felt in her hands and mouth. She imagined Tegan’s moist cunt: its silkiness, its softness, and its beauty. She remembered the fuzzy hair that covered her sister’s mound and the way she liked to pull it and grab it. She tried to recall all the freckles and moles that covered her sister’s skin. Tegan’s lips appeared inside her head next: they were so soft and so pouty, just like hers but a bit poutier. She remembered when she slapped Tegan’s ass and the older twin loved it, and asked for more. They were so young back then and she was so shy.

She came, gasping and panting for air and love. She looked up at her two digits; they were saturated with an almost whitish thickness. She pushed them in her mouth and deep throated them, remembering Tegan doing the same to the phallus they had both shared. She choked on her fingers, feeling stupid and slutty like that porn actress she and Rob had watched once in the back of their van.

She walked to the bathroom. It was a very cold bathroom. It was small, too. She hated it so much. She lowered her pants and boxer briefs, noticing the fluids coating the crotch. She sat down on the cold toilet seat and shivered. She peed after a few seconds of struggling to; it always happened after sex. She hopped in the shower after. The hot water warmed up her skin and relaxed her, but she continued crying. She wished she’d contact her sister and say sorry, but she couldn’t do it because she wasn’t ready for the heartbreak. She always hated this quality of having to prove something to everyone and to herself. She wanted pity, yes. She wanted for time to open its claws and lacerate her into small pieces of nothingness. This love was too hard to live with, she couldn’t do it anymore. But now she was in a strange city, alone and lost. She didn’t know if her career was still alive or what her sister was doing or if her mother was okay or if she was going to be alright. She didn’t know how she was supposed to gain money and how she was going to live these days alone without anybody to help her go through it.

She blamed her parents for every issue she had been going through since early childhood. They’re the ones who worked so hard on separating her and her sister that the one of the twins felt the need to climb out of her waterbed in the middle of the night and sneak into the other’s room. They would cuddle and giggle till they fell asleep. They always wanted to be together and Sonia always detached them till they grew up not being able to know how to live on their own without having to run to each other in moments of secrecy. Independence was damned; none of them could obtain it. They needed one another despite how tough Sara could get at some moments.

All these feelings were slapping her body, yet she couldn’t transfer them into words.

After her shower, she reached for a bottle of vodka and idled on the couch. She did not have a television so she reached for her laptop and put on one of her old DVDs, one she and Tegan watched together. There was nothing better than early 90s movies. She liked these cheesy films where nothing happened; they made her forget about her pain for a little while. The vodka helped, too. She ended her night with sleeping on that couch till she got up to go to the bathroom at three in the morning.

That was the daily routine of Sara Quin for about a month. Nights full of endless desire, longing, and fear; nights heavy with grief, torment, and tears. One March evening she decided to leave her place and find someone to actually share her bed with instead of relying on her fingers.

The songs were not coming and the words were lost inside whatever darkness in Sara’s head. Everyone thought she was the darkest human ever. She was too cold and insensitive; her sister told her one time. Sara cried in the bathroom that night. Rob felt the same way, and it was hard for her to treat him normally after kissing her all of a sudden and out of nowhere.

Angela was fiery, that’s what Sara thought when she first entered her place with Angela’s lips making a map of spit on her face. But it was the bad type of fiery; the one that would not scorch you enough to kill your morbidness, just leave you with bigger and deeper wounds. Sara didn’t care, though. Angela was her gift for the night and she was going to enjoy every bit of it.

“Is this your place?” Angela asked, her hand gripping the hem of Sara’s olive top, and her breath too hot on Sara’s frozen skin.

“Yeah,” Sara moaned in her ears. She was hardly a bottom in her relationships, which was sometimes an issue, but that night she allowed herself to show more vulnerability to a stranger...because Angela was a stranger.

“Too small,” Angela commented. Her tongue drew a line on Sara’s cheek. It felt repulsive.

“Not for me,” Sara said. She kissed Angela’s full lips.

Angela had blue eyes and dark hair. She looked a lot like Jen, the Bimbo (Sara liked to call her that), Tegan’s girlfriend. Angela took Sara’s shirt off before they stepped away from the door. Sara’s eyes focused on the word _Marines_ that was scribbled on the shirt while Angela’s tongue created fluid-full love on her breasts. Sara moaned.

Angela threw the white and pink lace bra on the floor next to the olive shirt. Sara’s breasts fell in the rough hand of the Jen-looking woman. “How old are you?” Jen woman asked with a raspy octave.

“Almost 23.”

“You have nice tits, little girl.” Angela squeezed a bit too harshly. Sara screamed, so Angela kissed each nipple.

“I’m not little,” Sara objected.

“I’m twice your age.” Sara gasped and shook. Jen woman was too old, yet did not look a day over thirty-five, which was also too old for Sara, but if her sister could do it, she thought why not?

Not much more was said. Jen woman, or Angela, fucked Sara on the couch. Sara cried in the morning when she woke up on the floor, alone in her place. That was the worst sexual experience she had ever had.

Sara moved around in her apartment, searching for her clothes from the night before. At the front door, she found the _Marines_ shirt. She picked it up and put it on. She picked her bra and threw it in the laundry. She picked up her boxers and put them on, too. Sara wept again in the kitchen. She hugged herself in that shirt; it was Tegan’s. She borrowed it for an interview once and never returned it again. It used to smell like Tegan and Tegan’s smoke, but now it smelled like alcohol and Jen woman. Sara took it off and threw it in the laundry. She stayed in her boxers, eating cereal and crying.

Sara tried to reach the dingy corners of her mind that people apprehended in order to find an answer to her block of words. The road seemed to get longer until she reached that place each day. There were lots of scary plants with prickles and thorns in the way. She did not have the sword to cut through them. Mostly, she stayed stuck right at the door, with her insides bleeding for a word to save her from this shattering aridity.

Eventually, she needed to get out and socialize because life between four cold walls was slowly sucking her dry, drinking up the juices of her mind. There was a small cafe’ ten minutes on foot away from her apartment. There was another one down her street, but she did not like the lighting and the coffee tasted more bitter than usual. The one ten minutes away was half a library, half a cafe’, and it had computers. She liked it as soon as she entered. It was called _céleste._ Sara didn’t know French, but it seemed like a fancy word.

“It’s not pronounced like that, by the way,” a girl once told Sara when she was ordering her coffee. The brunette who stood behind Sara was smirking. Sara ignored her and continued flirting with the woman behind the register.

“If you wanna flirt with a worker here, at least pronounce the name of the place correctly,” the brunette insisted, walking behind Sara.

“And you are?” Sara snapped.

“I’m Emily,” the brunette answered, “but everyone here calls me Emy.”

“Is that, like, your place? Did I offend you or something?” Sara asked exasperatedly.

“Nope,” Emy answered. “Just come here every day to do some work and study. I’ve noticed you’ve been coming here for the past week.”

Emy had blue eyes and brown hair. She was a bit taller and bigger than Sara in size. But Emy looked a bit like...Oh, like Tegan, or maybe it was just the way she talked. It was annoying. Emy was also clingy, like Tegan. She followed Sara and sat with her at the same table. Emy talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked and talked...

“Shut up,” Sara yelled. “Oh my God. You’re worse than my sister.” Sara was never rude, but there was something about Emy that allowed her to treat her like Tegan. Emy laughed; she did not get upset. She was a lot like Tegan.

“I was wondering when were you gonna tell me to stop. It takes my mum about five minutes before leaving the room.”

Emy was nice, though. She joined Sara at the table each day. Sara was aloof the first week. She was too reserved to say much. Emy was a lesbian; she was flirting with Sara. Sara did not pay her much attention. She was cute, yes, but she was...unattainable. Emy had a girlfriend.

Sara led another woman to her apartment ten days after Jen Woman, who Sara had forgotten her name by now. This new woman was younger, way younger than Jen Woman...and younger than Sara; she was only eighteen. Her name was Rita and she smelled nice. Sara slept on top of her so when they woke up, Rita would still be there. They both laughed at their position.

“Want coffee?” Sara asked.

“Uh...Yeah, yeah.” Rita seemed hesitant.

Rita left after breakfast and Sara cried again. But this time, she felt like she wanted to spit it all out and talk about it to someone. Tegan was not there (and it’s not like they talked about the girls they brought to bed anymore). Sara talked to Emy instead. It was the first time she told anything to Emy, while Emy usually talked about her days without any reservation.

“Hmm, and you wanted her to stay and, like...you wanted something? A relationship?” Emy asked.

Sara looked at the blackness of her coffee in the mug. She could see her reflection and her frown. “No, I...” Sara paused. “I guess...I don’t know...I’m just lonely.”

“Well, I don’t know anything about you but I think you need a friend, which is why I’m sitting here.” Sara laughed.

Sara and Emy became friends. Emy told Sara about her seriously vexing girlfriend and Sara told Emy about her infuriatingly annoying sister. Emy showed Sara her art and Sara read to Emy some of the small poems she had been writing.

Emy dug a hole in Sara’s mind where all the thoughts flew out, but they were a big pile of mess that could not be worked into lyrics or music, so Sara wrote small poems instead.

“This...this happened to me two years ago while writing _If It Was You_. I wrote these small poems, children stories, sayings and stuff...and then I, I merged them all together in a song called ‘Underwater.’”

“Oh, is that what this song is about? God, I loved it.” Emy sipped her coffee as if it was soda. She didn’t care if it was hot or cold; she sipped it right away and didn’t like to enjoy the taste like Sara.

“You heard my music?” Sara asked in amazement.

“Oh, yeah. I was searching for your Myspace and I found out you’re in a band with your sister, who you forgot to tell me is your twin, and you look so much alike that now I’m wondering whether I’m sitting with Tegan and not with you, you know?” Sara laughed from all her heart at this. It was charming.

“Yeah, sorry. I thought I did.” Sara closed her book. “What’s a Myspace, though?”

“Oh, it’s this cool new thing on the internet.”

“Oh, I don’t have internet access. I don’t have cable...or a TV. And I don’t have a phone.”

“Too broke for a musician,” Emy stated.

“Well, you see...that’s the problem. If I don’t come up with anything, if my mind won’t come up with anything, no musician anymore.”

Some days were good now that Sara talked to Emy and heard her bitch about her girlfriend, but some days were just plain horrible that Sara liked to squeeze herself inside the murkiness of her own mind and not leave her place for days. Emy got worried when Sara disappeared, especially that there was no way to contact Sara, but Sara still did not give her the address of her apartment.

“You know, I just...can’t take it sometimes. This has been the worst writer’s block for me,” Sara said.

“I’m sorry.”

“I wonder if they miss me.”

“Of course they do. I’m sure they’re worried.” Emy took a bite of her croissant. “Why don’t you read me this new poem?”

Sara read to Emy this poem she wrote for Tegan. She didn’t tell her all her poems were about her sister. God forbid she told anybody.

“And when we were younger, you played to me melodies full of torture. The pillow that separated us consumed all my tears. You were reckless; fear was absent in your terminology. You sunk and I sunk with you in the depth of your desire. It was beautiful, and we were fragile. You hold all the power this pronoun reduces you to.”

“Alright.” Emy sighed. “I can see that you’re...out of rhythm...confused.”

“Yes,” Sara said.

“I have a question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Is this all about, umm...the same woman?”

“Yes,” Sara answered.

“Alright. Are your songs also about her? Because I kinda wanna meet her right now. What a lucky lady.”

“Sort of.” Sara laughed softly and blushed. She sipped her coffee.

“What about the title _“If It Was You”_ , whose song was that?”

“Mine,” Sara answered quickly.

“I thought so. You guys use lots of _you_ in your songs. Why?” Sara felt like she was being interviewed; she was getting uncomfortable

“Yes...uh...we did use _her_...I mean, I did, in the first record, but we didn’t wanna be labeled as a lesbian band only for lesbians. We wanted everyone to enjoy our music.” Also, because _you_ referred to her and her sister. She remembered when Tegan suggested it. Tegan told her that they said, “I love you,” all the time and it held so much power that nobody understood, the same as the word _you_ that everybody used daily. It was just a pronoun, a silly pronoun.

Emy nodded. “I wish I’d hear this song. Seems intense.”

“Umm...it’s really, uh, you know not that good, which is why it didn’t make the record.”

“But it was the title of the record.” Emy shook her head. “I’m an artist, I know the sneaky way of hiding the meaning of the art that you adore behind the art itself.”

Sara looked at Emy for long minutes, smiling and thinking. Emy understood her more than anybody had ever done, but not more than Tegan. Emy felt close, trying to search and reach, trying to dig and didn’t seem scared to find out. Emy seemed like the type of person who sought for chaos to feel comfort.

“It isn’t pronounced with an E, by the way,” Emy spoke again. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were twinkling.

“Excuse me?” Sara asked.

“The name of the place, _Céleste_ ,” Emy said. “The E is silent.”

Sara laughed bashfully, tucking her fringe behind her ear. “Oh, okay.”

“It means celestial, just like the way your thoughts float: positioned in the outer space of your mind and are just mingling there. Your thoughts are céleste.”

“Oh.” Sara swallowed hard, looking down at her celestial thoughts written on wrinkled pieces of paper.


	2. Falling Asleep

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I felt that I should post the next chapter to elaborate on how this story is going to be. No, I will not be randomly shifting to different events in their lives. It will have two settings: past and present and they complement each other. The past is told in Tegan's P.O.V and the present in Sara's. 
> 
> Chapter content: Violence, gender roles and stereotypes (a little bit).

“I befriended Melancholy, I can breed with Melancholy,” Tegan read with a questioning octave. “Typical dark Sara, what a drama queen,” she mumbled. She flipped through the pages of her newly found treasure: Sara’s journal. She put her hand in a bag of chips and took a piece, directing it to her lips deliberately.

Sara had stopped being her twin, or that’s how she felt. Tegan was no longer invited to the sleepovers in Sara’s room with Sara and their friend Megan. Sara talked on the phone or stayed in her room or rolled her eyes at Tegan’s jokes. Sara used to laugh at Tegan’s jokes. Tegan wanted to know what was wrong; what happened; why did Sara change? So Tegan looked in Sara’s room when Sara was out with her _friends;_ the friends that Tegan wasn’t a friend to.

A journal, _yes!_ That’s what Tegan wanted to find. If Sara was hiding something, it would be in that journal. Tegan knew her sister; she wrote all the time.

Their mother once told them that there would come a time they wouldn’t be as close to each other as they were now. Tegan refused to believe that. It was ridiculous; they were twins; they couldn’t be separated at all. Even if they were, Tegan wouldn’t bear it. She knew she had always been the clingy twin, but Sara had been nice to her; however, recently, Sara had been so mean. Tegan feared Sara would kick her away from their twin bond…well, she’d been already doing that. Tegan wanted to know why.

Sara’s room was still the same; neat, tidy, smelled nice, smelled like Sara – unlike Tegan’s room, which was a dark, gothic mess of sadness and angst. The journal was underneath Sara’s pillow. Tegan sniffed Sara’s pillow when she pulled out the journal from under it. God, it smelled nice, it smelled like her baby sister. Sometimes Tegan wished that her boyfriend smelled like her baby sister. Sometimes she hated the fact that she wished that.

But she didn’t care about anything now. Nothing made her feel terrible now. She found it! She fucking found what she had been looking for. She got answers. Sara was in love with someone, these wistful lyrics and melancholic poems said so. No wonder her sister was changing; she was in love. Tegan herself remembered a few months before when she was falling in love with Jeremy. It was such a happy time and Sara made fun of her all through it. Tegan did not hide or sulk in isolation, she told Sara about it. Sara was mean to her at times, but Tegan didn’t care because if she wasn’t going to talk to her sister about her feelings, who would she talk to?

Tegan wished Sara would talk to her about how she’d been feeling lately, but it didn’t matter now because she found a better solution. Sara was always the rigid, cold one (that’s what Jeremy had said). She was the one who controlled her actions, emotions, desires, needs, and cravings…but certainly not her anger. Sara had been so angry the past few days that she almost hit a boy in _Psychology_ with her chair. The news was spread by Jeremy, who took most classes with Sara except Math and P.E. with Tegan.

Tegan still didn’t know what the deal that made Sara almost get expelled was. When she asked Jeremy, he shrugged and said it’s about some offense said by the boy. Jeremy said he was napping when things happened and he woke up when he heard the shouting. Typical Jeremy, Tegan rolled her eyes at the memory and stuffed more chips in her mouth. However, when Tegan asked Sara, the latter woman was furious. “Not your fucking business,” was the answer, which was followed by, “If you tell mum, I’ll tell her you’re blowing your boyfriend.”

Tegan wasn’t _blowing_ her boyfriend. Jesus Christ, she was only fourteen, well…almost fifteen in less than a month, but she was doing none of that horror. She still didn’t tell Sonia because she respected Sara’s privacy and Sara’s orders. Plus, if she ever wanted to do naughty things with Jeremy, she would want Sara to cover up for her, too.

Tegan decided she’d read the latest entries starting from the previous month. She leaned against the headboard and put her chips on her lap. The crumbs and oiliness were all over Sara’s mattress, Sara’s journal, Tegan’s hand, and Tegan’s clothes—but that was not an issue.

_August 1 st, 1995_

_If there is anyone who’s been getting on my nerves lately, it’s my fucking mother. Her presence is utterly suffocating. She’s a stalker, I swear. I wouldn’t put it past her. I feel like she watches every move and wants to correct every flaw as if she’s flawless herself. She’s full of fucking errors._

_Mother watches me when I speak. She has scornful eyes. Her pupils move sneakily like little monitoring mall cameras. I feel like she just wants to be against me. She hums if I say something, anything. It’s as if she wants to collect as much information as possible to destroy me at the end. I can’t run away from her, I can’t hide from her. She wants to find out and judge and hate._

_Mum is not a hater. She’s sweet, but not to me. I probably sound like I’m contradicting myself but I am living in an endless fear. I feel like I am being watched. I don’t know if what’s happening is merely my imagination fucking me up, or my mum can actually see through me and is giving me few more days to spell it out or she’ll kick me out of Bruce’s place._

For about five pages Sara’s sole problem seemed to be focused on Sonia, which Tegan didn’t get at all because their mother was too busy going to school to pay attention or monitor them as Sara had been writing. Tegan wanted to tell Sara that, but, of course, Sara couldn’t find out that Tegan was the only monitor in the house, spying and snooping and watching.

Tegan was about to stop reading but she really wanted to know why Sara was feeling this way towards their mother. Then she found it; the reason, the secret that almost made Tegan vomit while reading. Her heart felt like it was being grilled on heated lead; her head felt like it was being hit by the most powerful, unstoppable hammer; and her stomach felt like it was being squeezed by Sara’s hands till all the juices splashed out from between Sara’s fingers as she compressed and squeezed.

_August 12 th, 1995_

_Today was a…strange day. Yes, I think this is the right word. I feel too shy to write about it. I never imagined I’d be so embarrassed just thinking of it, but I can’t stop biting my lips, squeezing my legs together and blushing whenever I remember. I didn’t even think it would happen this soon. I didn’t think I would like it. I wanted it and I’ve been thinking about it since that kiss with Megan, but I thought that all my feelings would evaporate as soon as I experienced more things, like sex. Well, now I guess that I am actually a lesbian, which doesn’t necessarily feel good because now I’m more anxious and scared, but at least now I know that I like girls._

_I don’t know how it happened but it did. Actually, I do. I shouldn’t lie. I knew things would happen because we were alone without mum or Tegan. I just thought maybe we’d make out and feel each other; I didn’t think we’d actually go all the way._

_It’s a lot like masturbation, but it’s so much better. I think I was better than her, I probably was. But I also need to work on my sex skills. I have to search some stuff on the internet, but I have to use mum’s computer and that’s not good._

_Megan is so hot, though. She’s just amazing. I didn’t think I’d like playing with boobs (that sounds a bit weird to write) but I really do. I didn’t think I’d like seeing vaginas, but hers is awesome (and that’s just weirder to write). I think I like seeing girls naked even though I hate seeing me naked. It’s kinda weird how I am repulsed by my own nether region but fascinated by my friend’s._

_I think if I go back and read this one day, I will feel really embarrassed and shocked. But I am definitely looking forward to sleeping with Megan again._

Tegan had abandoned her chips and was now too engrossed in the new realization she found. A sense of deep and dark nostalgia was permeating in the air, hovering above her, making Sara’s room a stranger; making Sara a stranger. But there was also a sense of excitement, fear, anger, worry, anxiety, rebelliousness, revelry—there was a sense of something she didn’t know how to describe. It was in her chest ticking like an old clock. It was in her stomach mingling with her bile. It was there and it was intruding, parasitizing, and imposing itself on her insides.

The more she read the exhausted she felt, because there was also grief and loss there. Sara hid precious secrets from her and she found them out. Sara was different from her now. Sara had sex. Sara was a woman and she was only a silly, little girl. Sara was experienced. Sara had sex with a girl. Her sister was not like her, she did not like the same sex, and she did not have the same experiences. All dreams of joined weddings and sisterly talks about boyfriends, honeymoons, babies, and straight sex forced themselves out of the keyhole of Sara’s door and evaporated slowly as Tegan read.

_August 25 th, 1995_

_I feel like the more I hide the more I despise those who are around me. I feel neglected by my mother and my sister. They don’t ask me what’s wrong; they want to know against my will. They attack in mocking sentences. I can’t invite Tegan to our sleepovers anymore because she’s mum’s most faithful messenger; I know she’ll tell her everything. Plus, the sleepovers now are really…sex dates. Sometimes I feel like mum has her head too far up her own ass not to know I am having sex with Megan almost everyday in my room. Sometimes I wish she’d realize it, but of course I don’t want that privilege to be taken away from me, so I’m thankful she doesn’t know._

_However, Tegan’s boyfriend knows. Jeremy is a good friend, but I’ve always felt something strangely obscure towards him, a sense of discomfort even though I like him as a friend. When I see him with Tegan I feel queasy. I ask myself, what is she doing with him? She can do so much better. He’s not bad, he’s nice. But my sister can do so much better. Maybe it is jealousy because she can freely make out with her boy in front of everyone while I cannot do the same with a girl. I feel jealous of Tegan._

_I almost hit a boy in class for insulting queer people. It’s something I don’t like to recall in this journal and hopefully by the time I’m reading this again, I will have forgotten about this ridiculous incident. Jeremy stopped me before I could throw the chair at the fuck-face. I was so furious. I started sobbing and Jeremy hugged me. I felt…strange. But I knew then why Tegan loved him and it only made me feel queasier because I felt like we don’t share anything anymore. She has a boy who loves her so much and who hugs so well and I am sleeping with my best friend whom I don’t love, and her hugs are not that great. Jeremy already knew I was gay. He said he saw me kissing Megan when we skipped Biology last Monday and hid behind the school’s entrance. He said that he had football practice and he was with two boys. He promised they hadn’t seen a thing, but I doubt it. This only made me angrier and I almost punched him, but he calmed me down and let me cry. He promised he wouldn’t tell Tegan, but I don’t believe him because whenever I see Tegan in front of me I expect her mocking face and her sneering confrontation. I expect her calling me gay and fag and stupid and queer and lezo and all of these things. I know she’ll tell mum about the sex. Tegan will not accept me, I know it. She makes fun of me and she’s been doing it a lot lately just because I’ve been distant from her. Imagine what she’ll do and say if I tell her. I only hide because I don’t want to break down and say it. I don’t want her to see it on my face. I want to stay as hidden as possible till I know I’m safe._

Enraged, disappointed tears fell out of Tegan’s eyes. She felt simply confounded, shocked, and puzzled with what she had read. She felt furious. She cried as she read more words. Her sister felt like this towards her and she didn’t know.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Sara snapped from behind. Slowly, Tegan turned around. Her eyes were red and her face was full of tears. “What the fuck is that in your hand? Why are you in my room?”

“You motherfucking bitch,” Tegan shrilled. “How could you? How could you?” Something in her was ignited. She jumped on her sister, thumping her with a closed fist in the face.

“Motherfucker, motherfucker,” Sara screamed as well, striking back in spite of her confusion. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You’re fucking gay. You’ve been sleeping with Megan. Motherfucking whore. You told Jeremy but you don’t want to tell me and I’m your fucking twin.” Tegan hit again, straddling her younger sister, wrapping her two hands around Sara’s neck. “Why?” she shouted and cried.

Sara spat on her. “Fuck you,” she screamed. “Did that fucking dick tell you? Fuck him and fuck you.” Sara sobbed more than Tegan had ever seen her before.

“Nobody did. I found out on my own,” Tegan exclaimed.

Then it hit Sara when her two eyes peered at the notebook opened on the bed next to the empty bag of chips. One quick, angry movement flipped them, making the younger twin get on top of the older one. Sara cried and cried as she slapped and hit her sister. “You looked into my personal stuff. I fucking hate you.” Sara spat on Tegan’s face once again. “You invaded my privacy and now you’re fucking beating me up for liking girls. This is why I didn’t wanna tell you.” Sara stood up and cried. “Get out of my fucking room.” Sara opened her door and motioned for Tegan to go. Tegan slammed the door and pushed Sara against it, ready to strike once again. Sara shrieked when the door was suddenly and violently opened, throwing both girls on the ground.

“What’s going on?” Bruce said sternly and loudly. Both girls were crying and beaten up. Tegan’s face was red and Sara’s right temple was slightly bruised. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Get the fuck out of my room. I don’t fucking ever want to talk to you.” Sara ignored their stepfather and opened the door again.

Tegan left the room and slammed the door once, opened it then slammed it again, opened it and before slamming it the third time, Bruce held it. His angry big eyes threatened both of them. “Stop slamming my doors.” Tegan did not listen. She walked to her room and slammed her door again. The noise and stubbornness provoked the stepfather, who ran downstairs and back upstairs faster than the passing wind outside their windows. He opened both doors quickly, making half naked Tegan scream. Bruce did not care. “My damn doors are not for you to slam. I’ll take the firkin’ hinges off them till you two work whatever the heck is going on. I want peace and quiet in my house, and I certainly don’t want my doors broken because of teenage hormones and fury.”

Sara was on her mattress, confused and crying. Tegan was walking around trying to put on whatever she could as quickly as possible. She was about to go to Jeremy’s and have another fit there. Bruce had grabbed a screwdriver from the utensils drawer in the kitchen and was now turning the screws of Tegan’s door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Bruce said without even glancing at dressed in baggy black clothes Tegan.

“Out,” she whispered coldly. From her periphery, she could see Sara’s small swollen eyes gazing at her as she lay in bed.

“With this scene you and your sister have caused? I don’t think so.” Bruce was too strong; he grabbed Tegan’s door and put it on the floor. He stepped in Sara’s room, ready to take the hinges off her door.

“What do you mean?” Tegan said, sniffling and wiping her nose with the sleeve of her hoodie.

“You and your sister are grounded. Work whatever the heck it is. Your mother and I have had enough with you. She has school and she’s working hard and you two are sucking up all her energy with your stupid quarrels. No going out, no nothing till you work this out.”

“For how long?” Sara sat up as the question eased out of her lips.

“For as long as I decide.” Tegan cussed underneath her breath and went back to her room, lying on her bed. “Oh, and certainly nobody visits, too. No Jeremy, no Megan.”

“Oh, don’t worry I can live without him but I don’t think Sara can live without Megan,” Tegan said.

“Fucking bitch,” Sara screamed.

“Sara and Tegan,” Bruce said loudly, “do you want to be grounded for months?”

“We have to go to dad’s on Saturday,” Tegan interposed.

“I’ll make sure he’s well-informed about this and he will gladly ground you.” Bruce removed Sara’s door and put it next to her sister’s.

Two doors were out of the way. Two separators were gone. Two rooms were exposed to each other and two beds faced one another. Both girls lay in their beds, both of them hid their sullen faces in their pillows. Sara cried and Tegan’s chest ached as she listened to these miserable cries. Tegan’s tears were also streaming down her face, but her baby sister was so hurt that her wails were too loud to ignore.

At dinner Sonia preached till everyone’s head hurt. Tegan watched her younger sister staring at her untouched plate with fixed, pondering eyes. Tegan herself stirred her peas or mashed some as she wrinkled her nose. She hated these green balls. She couldn’t eat much. Sara didn’t even bother eating anything. Sara looked too stiff and wrathful. Whenever her eyes met Tegan’s, she looked at her plate instantly.

“I just don’t get it,” Sonia continued. Tegan looked at her mother. “You’ve been fighting so much lately and it seems that tonight’s quarrel has been the worst. I just wish I know what’s wrong.” Sonia chewed and talked. Bruce did not say anything at all as well. His job was done. He never interfered in these situations. He was only given the option of punishing the girls if they crossed the line or caused a huge scene. Sonia dealt with everything. In rare times, their father was involved. “I should probably just take you two to a therapist.”

Tegan groaned.

“Sara, eat your food please,” Sonia said, stuffing more peas and rice in her mouth.

Sara did not respond, nor even glance at her mother.

“Why aren’t you eating? Tegan, can you just tell me what the hell happened? What did you do?”

“I didn’t do anything,” Tegan snapped. Sara flinched in her seat. “This is so fucking unfair.”

“What’s unfair?” Sonia asked.

“Taking off the doors. This is so fucking stupid.”

Bruce glared as Sonia scolded, “Don’t you dare call our methods stupid. What you and your sister fight about is what’s stupid. You deserve this. You have to learn how to work this out; you must learn to live together under one roof.”

“What about our privacy?”

“What do you know about privacy?” Sara said with gritted teeth.

Tegan ignored her; she knew her sister was right. She looked at their mother and continued, “I can’t live without a door, you know. I can’t get dressed or whatever. That’s just so wrong.”

“First of all, nobody goes upstairs but you and your sister. It’s not like you haven’t seen each other naked anyway.”

“We were eight,” Tegan interjected.

“Plus, I’m pretty sure people get dressed and undressed in bathrooms.”

Tegan groaned once again.

“You will be grounded until you work this out,” Sonia mumbled and looked at Sara, who before the mother finished her sentence, she had pushed her chair. A sudden, loud sob left her lips. She didn’t look at anyone but everyone looked at her. She got up and ran upstairs.

Tegan watched her sister remorsefully as Sonia eyed her. She had nothing to say to her mother and she couldn’t even look her in the eyes. She had never felt as guilty, yet she couldn’t voice it. Sara was just so different from her and it felt so overwhelming. Homosexuality was an option in their household and that was interesting but also frightening. Her sister was different and she was not like her. She felt so left out, she felt so far away. She wasn’t going to judge, but her sister thought she would. Her reaction was merely anger because something so big and important was hidden from her. She knew homosexuality, she thought of it. Nobody knew that but she thought of it before falling asleep once, twice, and even more after hearing the rumor about these two girls making out; and after watching some film with her mother; and after Ellen came out; and after reading about it in her mother’s books. Yet Sara thought she was not going to support her, and she just proved what Sara had predicted. She felt so ashamed.

Sara’s lights were all off when Tegan went upstairs after watching a movie with her mother. It was 9:43 when Tegan checked the clock in her room. There was a small lump under the duvet harboring her sister in the other room. Tegan went to the bathroom in order to wash her face and brush her teeth. When she came back, the silence was disturbed by soft cries. Tegan tried not to pay them any attention as she put on her pajamas and climbed into her mattress.

Even though the cries were gone and the silence shadowed the two rooms, Tegan still couldn’t sleep as early as she did every day. Her door not being there was just a ticking sensation keeping her awake all night. She thought of everyone. She thought of her mother and whether she was asleep peacefully knowing her youngest daughter had been crying all night, she thought of her father in his house and wondered if her mother had told him, she thought of her boyfriend and whether he was worried she hadn’t called, she thought of Megan and whether she was worried about Sara’s absence, and she thought of her sister and her feelings and emotions. She thought of the betrayal she had showed and the disappointment she was feeling. Regret struck her and made her tears come out of her lids. She cried, knowing exactly why she couldn’t sleep.

“Tegan?” Sara whispered, making Tegan pause her weeping.

“Did I wake you?” she asked as she sniffled.

“I wasn’t asleep,” Sara mumbled inaudibly. Tegan barely heard her.

“I’m sorry.” Tegan sat up. “I’m very sorry, Sara.”

“Shhh,” Sara said. “Mum and Bruce are asleep. Please don’t wake them up. The last thing I need is an interrogation,” Sara whispered as she stepped inside Tegan’s room.

“Do you forgive me? For what I’ve done? I was just shocked and I felt…I felt left out. I just wished you’d told me.” Sara sat on the mattress inches away from her sister. “I was shocked you thought I’d judge you.”

“You wouldn’t?” Sara asked as she flipped her hair slowly. “You’re not weirded out or disgusted that your sister is gay?”

“No,” Tegan said, wiping her eyes. “I don’t care who you love. You’re my twin sister, Sara. I just don’t want that thing to separate us and make us…you know, be like mum said: all weird and fighting all the time.”

“I’m sorry.” Sara crawled on the mattress when Tegan patted her side. “It doesn’t happen everyday. I don’t know how I’ll come out. I don’t know what will happen. I’m so scared, Tegan.” Her sister started crying again. Tegan didn’t know how that felt but something in her spoke of the agony that was in her sister’s chest. Maybe that’s what they called twin telepathy. She wanted to join her sister’s cries. She wanted to pacify this internal battle. Sara cried on her pillow and she hugged her, feeling that she was hugging a stranger for the first time, but also feeling as if she was in the arms of the person she knew more than herself, if that was possible.

When they woke up in the morning, Sara dragged herself lazily to her room. They didn’t talk much but they smiled at each other while having breakfast. Their mother was reading a book and eyeing them slowly whenever she thought they didn’t notice. Sonia sipped her coffee in the annoying manner they both didn’t like, which made them wrinkle their noses and giggle at each other.

“I see that everything’s well,” Sonia said, taking a bite of her toast.

“Yes,” Tegan said then sighed. “We kinda worked it out.”

“Too quickly, I believe.”

“You don’t like that? What the fuck do you like?”

“Sara,” Sonia scolded her youngest, “watch your damn mouth.”

“You just said damn,” Sara said, flipping her hair the way she had done the night before. Tegan bit her lower lip as she inspected the femininity her sister portrayed. She thought that gay women looked like boys, but her sister’s hair was still so long and her sister still had a feminine demeanor despite the baggy, tomboyish clothes they both wore.

“You’re still grounded, though,” Sonia said. “You’re grounded till next week and till I make sure this won’t happen again. I can’t trust you lately. You’ve been hot and cold with each other.”

Tegan thought that they were only like that because of Sara’s secret, which was not a secret anymore. She hoped Sara wouldn’t give her the cold shoulder once again.

In school Tegan sat with her boyfriend and they talked about Sara as if her queerness was this morning’s news. Sara and Megan didn’t even come to lunch, which drew pictures in Tegan’s head. She wondered whether she’d find them hiding in one of the stalls; she wondered whether they were trying their best not to be too loud, stifling sounds of pleasure and euphoria.

“Yeah, so, I said to Timmy that he can’t come into my room when you’re over and he won’t bother us like last time. But God damn it, you had to be grounded? I want you to myself for a second, you know,” Jeremy said. He took a sip of his apple juice and looked at his girlfriend’s blank face. “Tegan? Tegan? Are you with me?” He waved his hand in front of her face.

“Huh?” Tegan looked at him. “Uh, you know, Jeremy, I’ll see you in class. I gotta run.” Tegan endeavored to find Sara and Megan in one of the bathrooms. She wanted to listen to those sounds. She was always so curious when it came to Sara. If she couldn’t share the experience, she had to be well-informed of it.

Instead, she found Sara crying in one of the secluded bathrooms nobody went to. It was the first bathroom she pursued because of the rumors she had heard about it. Nobody was fucking anybody as she’d heard, but her sister was bawling her eyes out.

“Get out, get out. Please, just leave me,” Sara pushed her before she could even say anything.

“What happened? I’m worried,” Tegan tried, neglecting the usual violence.

“Megan doesn’t want to be with me or my friend or anything. She says she’s not into girls and it was a mistake and nobody should have known.” Sara buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

“Nobody knows, though.”

“You do,” Sara said. “I told her that you do and she freaked out.”

Tegan didn’t respond. This was her fault somehow, or that’s how she felt. She really wanted to hug her sister, but she knew better. Sara cried till class started. Tegan and her parted and only met on their way back home, sitting next to each other on the bus. They didn’t say much to each other. Sara wasn’t in the mood for a chat, that’s what she told her older sister. Tegan let her be.

At night, Sara came into Tegan’s room once again and slept beside her. Tegan woke up to Sara’s movement. Sara mouthed a quick apology but Tegan didn’t know what to say. In the morning Sara told her that she could only fall asleep next to her.

“Like when we were children?” Tegan asked.

“Yes,” Sara replied. “It’s something about the doors being away. When mum used to keep our doors open, I got scared and ran to your room. I could only sleep when you hugged me like a big sister. It’s…it’s embarrassing that I feel this way now.”

“Don’t feel embarrassed.” Tegan revealed her gummy smile. Sara’s sleepy eyes narrowed when her lips stretched in a weak smile. “I’m always there to be your big sister and hold you while you sleep.”

“Thank you,” Sara muttered.

In the evening, Tegan and Sara worked on their music separately, but since they didn’t have doors, it was hard for them both to concentrate.

“What are you writing?” Tegan asked.

“Something angsty about Megan dumping me. You?”

Tegan hummed, pondering the question in her head. “The words…the words you said in the morning inspired me. Uh…” Tegan blushed.

“Are you writing a song about me?” Sara asked, grinning.

“Well,” Tegan put her guitar down, next to her lyrics notebook. “So far it’s about sleeping.”

“Sleeping with me?” Sara said, stepping out of her room and standing in the hallway.

“Sara!” Tegan scowled.

“It was funny,” Sara said.

“I’m glad you feel fine enough to joke about incestuous relationships,” Tegan mumbled, looking at the lyrics she had jotted down: _I’m falling asleep; I’m falling asleep in your arms…_

“I’m alright. I feel like a weight has been lifted off my chest…coming out to you, I mean. I don’t have to hold a grudge just because I think you’ll hate me for liking pussy.”

“Sara!” Tegan looked at her sister gravely. “Does the filthy mouth accompany the sexuality?”

“Does it make you uncomfortable when I talk about girls or their parts this way? Tell me.” At that point, it seemed that her sister was trying to make her feel uncomfortable on purpose. The way Sara voiced her attraction to female genitalia made her consider her attraction to penises. She had never been attracted to those; God knows how they looked in real life. She didn’t have to be attracted to them because she wasn’t attracted to _pussies_ as well. Maybe she’d figure it out when she slept with Jeremy. Sleeping with Jeremy should happen soon; she didn’t want to be the only virgin in this house. She didn’t want Sara to hold more knowledge than she did. She didn’t care about being ready or not, Sara wasn’t ready. All of that was just some silly, romantic shit they showed in TV. People had sex, it was normal. She was going to have sex with Jeremy and become like Sara: experienced and free.

“It doesn’t,” Tegan finally answered. “I just don’t go around saying I like sucking cock.”

“You just did.” Sara stepped inside Tegan’s room, smirking in glee. “Do you like that?” Tegan did not respond. She pretended she was busy scribbling something in her notebook. “Fine, then.”

At night Sara joined her in bed again. This time she was crying heavily. It worried Tegan. Sara buried her head in Tegan’s chest and Tegan held her like the song she had written. Sara’s mood had been fluctuating lately, even their mother had noticed. Tegan blamed Megan, who stopped talking to both of them. Maybe Sara found shelter in her arms because she didn’t judge her like Megan (who slept with her) did. It was ironic. Tegan did tell Jeremy about it and he cussed the other brunette under his breath. Sara sat with Jeremy and Tegan at lunch. Jeremy was supportive, but he couldn’t stop staring at Sara as if she had won the noble prize of the gays. Tegan even asked him if he was attracted to Sara more than her, which felt rather idiotic when she thought about it later in the evening.

“Sing me that sleeping song you’re working on, maybe I could sleep. I can’t take it. I feel so lost and so wrong all the time. Everything feels strange. I can’t find safety unless I’m here. I feel like you’re the only one who actually still loves me and doesn’t treat me differently.”

“It’s not ready yet. I don’t have much written.” Tegan stroked her sister’s soft, long hair.

“Please,” Sara pleaded. “You invaded my privacy and read my diary without me knowing. Please sing the song you’ve written.”

“I’m sorry I did that. I was so shocked with your behavior towards me. I wanted to know what was wrong.”

“I know,” Sara said. She lifted her head and looked up. “I’m glad you did read it. I’m happy you found out and you are supporting me.” Tegan nodded. “Sing me the sleeping song.”

“Oh, uh…alright.” Tegan swallowed, preparing herself to mutter the song softly, hoping Sara wouldn’t judge what she had written.

_“Falling asleep, I’m falling asleep in your arms/ I’m falling asleep, I’m falling asleep in your arms…”_ Tegan sang as she stroked her sister’s hair. She could feel Sara’s chest against her, she could feel the breathing process in her sister’s asthmatic lungs.

_“Well here I am, I'm falling like I always…/ Here I am beside you and I’m falling down/ Here I am falling and I'm on my knees/ On my knees I'm crying and I always fall down.”_ Sara resumed her tears again and Tegan was not sure if the words were the reason or her mixed feelings and emotions were the cause.

_“Falling asleep, I’m falling asleep in your arms/ Will you catch me/ Will you catch me?”_

Tegan stopped. She really hadn’t written much. The song still needed so much work. Sara was softly crying, dampening Tegan’s shirt. Tegan wondered what their mother would say if she saw them cuddling in the same mattress. She tried her best to separate them when they were young and Sara always managed to find her way in Tegan’s bed. The past was repeating itself again and Tegan was not sure if their mother was to blame for separating them, or Bruce was to blame for taking these hinges off the damn doors and reminding them of their affection for each other when they were young and innocent.

“That’s a beautiful song,” Sara said. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Tegan said as well.

Sara moved up and kissed her sister’s left cheek. “Everything is reminding me of when we were kids.”

“Me, too.” Maybe they did have some twin telepathy or twin thoughts which were shared in special moments, Tegan pondered.

“You know, maybe the perfect plan was getting these doors out of the way. Bruce’s smart, kinda. Without it we would have been angry at each other still, and having trouble sleeping each night in our separate beds,” Sara said then yawned. “Your song is so good; I think I can fall asleep.” Sara laughed softly at her own pun.

“I guess so. I like this,” Tegan mumbled.

“Goodnight, sweet Teetee.” Sara put her head on Tegan’s chest and endeavored to fall asleep. Tegan’s body felt a wave of excitement when Sara’s head touched Tegan’s chest and when her soft voice pronounced Tegan’s childhood nickname. Tegan couldn’t fall asleep.   


 


	3. I Can't Take It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content note: suicidal thoughts.

Running away from her boggling, jumbled feelings used to occur with music. The melodies that leapt in her mind with each dilemma birthed songs that made ears gasp and hearts marvel at the ability. Yet, nobody could see the talent because, as they said, it was a unique talent. A complex mind like hers found no place among ordinary people.

But Sara didn’t feel quite as unique as Ryan Adams had described her. Her feelings were dispersed in her tiny skull, throttling her, leading her to insanity. Words were all over the place and no melodies filled her mind. Only words, words and phrases. Not hers. Tegan’s, Emy’s, Katina’s, Sonia’s, her therapist’s…not her words. She couldn’t take it any longer. Tears streamed each day in each hour. She was too young to be this depressed, this lonely, this confused.

She couldn’t come up with any song at all. She had to meet up with Tegan again in the summer; they had to continue touring _If It Was You_. That cycle was not ending, but that was better, because she had nothing ready, nothing written; and she was looking at the university brochures that Emy had given her.

Emy convinced her to major in Art, like herself, but Sara wanted to stray from anything that required creativity. She was creative one day, but not anymore. Majors like Linguistics or Law attracted her. She could do that. She could memorize some things. Journalism was great, too. But again, that would put her in the media, and she didn’t know if she wanted to do that without her sister. The camera was not for her alone, it was for Tegan, too. They had to do it together. Tegan would despise her.

Tegan would despise her anyway if she went to college. She was betraying her solely by considering her options. It seemed long ago when Tegan had written that song for her, making her decide whether she wanted to continue with her education or follow her dream. She chose the latter because it felt like it was the right decision at that time, now she didn’t know anymore. She could not come up with one single song and the time kept getting closer, despite how slow it felt.

Mornings were trying and hating herself in her cold apartment. Afternoons were waiting for Emy, waiting for a knock upon the door. When Emy was there with a smile merrier than Christmas, Sara relaxed. She allowed Emy to hold her hands and take her to _Celeste’._ They drank coffee, they talked, and Sara felt jealous of people in love—Emy and Natalie (her very, very, very, very fucking hot girlfriend with nice hair— Sara wrote in her diary).

If she and Tegan were not sisters, they could be happy. They could be the happiest couple that had ever lived. They would take the Noble prize of happiness, if there was any. They had a band together, Sara would be able to write music (because happiness led to a clear head and that resulted in good music); they would have enough money to live in one place and, maybe, even get a cat. They would be happy. Just fucking happy. But, of course, fate hated them and decided to make them sisters.

If she was able to love Katina the way she loved Tegan, Katina wouldn’t have experienced the void while being with her, she wouldn’t have cheated with a man, she wouldn’t have doubted her sexuality; they would have been happy. Oh, they would be happy because they were so alike and Katina was funny. Fucking, Kat. Why couldn’t she see the misery Sara was dwelling in? That’s why Sara couldn’t be with someone anymore, she would hurt them. She would hurt herself. She would hurt Tegan. She was not destined to be happy. A jumbled mess, she couldn’t take it.

Then what was she feeling for Emy? Why did her heart flutter with each smile? Why did she get jealous whenever Natalie was mentioned? Bitter sensations and pangs anguished her chest whenever the gorgeous woman joined them, laughing and smiling as if nothing was wrong.

Sara was not an idiot. She could tell something was lurking underneath the surface, something between her and Emy. Emy’s eyes spoke thousands of love letters and Sara’s hazel ones reciprocated with bashful smiles and flushed cheeks.

Nights were drinking her sorrows and fucking her memories till the state of forgetfulness. And the next morning the cycle was repeated. Sometimes she woke up with a woman beside her, other times she woke up alone.

“So much sex with strangers isn’t healthy,” Emy warned. “You could have an STD right now.”

“I don’t care,” Sara mumbled.

“You will when your pee stings, okay?”

Sara laughed. “You seem like you know.”

“Everybody knows.”

“I got a physical like two days ago. I don’t have an STD,” Sara admitted.

“Oh.” Emy’s lips wrapped around the pink straw as she sipped her mocha frappuccino. “You know…” Emy wiped her full lips with a napkin. “I wouldn’t sleep with you knowing how many women you fucked in the past month.”

“Most of them fucked me.” Sara smirked. “I bet you would, though.”

“No,” Emy uttered loudly and quickly. “I am a taken woman. I meant if I was single.”

“You would sleep with me. You can’t resist all this beauty.” Sara didn’t know where her courage sprang up from, but it was thriving and she felt proud. Her heart was drumming inside her chest and her palms were sweaty.

“If you didn’t sleep with so many women, I would consider it, but…” Emy looked at the sketch she was working on. Dimples adorned her face as she smiled.

“But?”

“I wouldn’t want to have one fuck and be left. I would want something. You’re obviously in love with someone and I can’t…” Emy shrugged. “I can’t deal with that if I…if I liked you.”

“Do you like me?” Sara was impatient, demanding answers.

Emy looked at her as if she was surprised with such a question. She blinked a few times and tucked her brown hair behind her red ear. “I do, Sara. You’re my friend.”

“No…” Sara swallowed. “You know what I mean.”

Emy shrugged. They were supposed to be saved at that moment, if it was a movie…but nobody saved Emy. It was not a movie, nor a book. Reality was breathing and Emy was supposed to give oxygen. Sara was waiting. Her fingers hid inside the ripped parts of her jeans, pinching at warm skin.

“Yes,” Emy whispered.

When she looked at Sara, her eyes were teary.

“I like you, too,” Sara admitted. “A lot.” She shrugged.

They decided to make mistakes, it’s not like they were flawless beings. Cheating was something Sara never imagined she would be associated with after Kat, but that didn’t stop her from sleeping with a woman in a relationship that had been on for three years.

When Sara suggested going to her place, Emy did not consider it twice. Hesitancy was present, but something felt so sure in Emy’s countenance—in the peacefulness of her river-like irises, in the pink color of her lips. Her lips looked so soft, Sara couldn’t resist.

Tegan…Tegan…Tegan…

Oh, fuck Tegan. She was with The Bimbo, probably fucking each night till she made her forget about the existence of a twin. _Probably_. Tegan did email her, her management did, too. Her mother sent many emails. Sara checked her email from Emy’s computer a week before. Sara did not respond.

Forget Tegan for now. Sara was with Emy. Sweet, charming Emy. She was beautiful and soft.

Doors closed and lips locked. Melodies rang in Sara’s ears, but they weren’t to be written and composed. They were too…strange, sad, melancholic. Melodies of chains choking her till she screamed that she couldn’t take it. She died, she died, oh yes she did. And Emy’s hands were just so perfect. Could she take this mess in her head?

They fought through mutual dominance as hands tore each other’s clothes. There wasn’t any room for thinking, for pausing, for taking a breath, nor looking at each other more than a few seconds.

If their eyes touched, it was merely a result of lust. Their breaths were thunder in a quiet night and their whimpers were lamentations. They were quiet but their insides were screaming. They were loud in feelings, silent in words. Their bodies were heated for each other.

Sara pushed her bedroom’s door, a sign that said _City Girl_ was on the door and Sara could tell it caught Emy’s eyes. She made it herself as she struggled with her music. She thought it would be ironic to put it there. If Tegan saw it, she would laugh.

Emy’s mouth was hot and moist, and Sara loved the way her tongue was as artful as her hands. It seemed that they both knew what they wanted and they both ventured to get it. They were the same, so strong, boisterous, fire poured onto gasoline. It’s what Sara needed. It’s the pleasure she had dreamed of. She and Tegan did not have that fire, no. They were romantic. There was always the dominant and the submissive sides. She was the one in charge, Tegan gave in. Even when Tegan topped, Sara still led the way.

With Emy, though…oh, God. Sara couldn’t get enough. Emy was not much stronger to push her down and top her, make her give in and stop trying. Emy paralleled her in vigor, in movements, in actions, in thoughts. It felt as if their hands, mouths; bodies were made to experience this exotic nirvana.

It was not Tegan, but for the first time it was not bad. And Sara…well, she could feel, for the first time, that maybe…maybe she could be with someone else, someone like Emy…Emy herself.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t sleep with me,” Sara said when Emy flipped her over, straddled her, held her arms above her head.

“Shut the fuck up.” Emy kissed her again and bodies began to sway together.

Sara felt no regrets. She closed her eyes and felt every wet kiss on her velvety skin. She tasted betrayal on her mouth but paid no attention. No songs came to her brain but there was a melody of slow destruction. Something that went up and went down, high and low, living and dying. It was a melody that spoke anxiety. Anxiety moaned inside her when Emy pushed two fingers in. She did the same to Emy.

They embraced each other when Sara flipped them, taking Emy’s place. Tears stained their eyes as they kissed. Both knew, yet nobody stopped. Both couldn’t get it, couldn’t comprehend the power of their feelings. Breasts kissed, stomachs joined, limbs entangled; they abused the vibrating need and came in high pitched screams. Their sweat mingled and their lips locked to enhance the sweet sensation that came in waves.

“Don’t leave, please,” Sara cried. Her arm stretched like a worm and her hand gripped Emy’s like a snake finding its prey. Her voice was desperate. “Stay with me,” she whispered. Emy retreated. She pushed her body inside the mattress, but not too close to Sara’s. She didn’t say anything, and Sara did not speak as well. It was a sin, a mistake, a catastrophe, a disaster. Emy had cheated and Sara felt guilty.

Did Emy feel it, too?

“Who is this woman you love?” Emy wondered loudly. “I think she’s lucky.”

Sara looked at brown-haired Emy. Her fresh face and melancholic eyes were attractive in ways which were celestial, oh yes, so celestial. “I don’t really love her,” Sara lied. “Actually…” She paused, she thought. “I…I can’t get over the fact she cheated on me with a man. It hurts me.”

“Katina.” Sara had told Emy about Katina. “I didn’t…I didn’t even assume it’s her. It’s like…” Emy chuckled, “You’re more in love with Tegan than Katina…that’s how much it didn’t seem like you had any feelings for her. I’d say you’re in love with this…like, headboard of this bed more than Katina.” She laughed nervously.

Sara did, too. Only her heart couldn’t take it anymore. She wanted to scream and hit this motherfucking headboard and break everything in her room. Lying was hard when it wasn’t in a song, in banter, to strangers. With Emy, whom oddly enough Sara was feeling terrifying and strong feelings for, lying felt like committing another sin.

“I said I’m not in love with her…I just…can’t stop…” Sara started crying. “My heart hurts because of her.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Sara.” Emy’s body inched closer to hold Sara’s small one.

Sara and Emy slept together every day at a certain time for a certain period because Emy had a girlfriend. Sara couldn’t take it.

The melody in her head became louder each night. As soon as her head hit the pillow, wet hair stained the pillowcase, eyes closed; the melody became louder; boisterous, raucous, and soniferous. Sara couldn’t sleep because of the beat that kept going up and down, high and low.

_I can’t take it…_

_I can’t take it…_

It kept singing in her head.

She needed stability but found none. She needed order but had none. She needed love, she needed liberty of feelings…she needed the ocean, the water, the liberation, the feeling of being free because, in all honesty, she could not fucking take what was going on in her head.

The sex was liberating, yes. But it was only for that short moment. How ironic, Emy said she’s afraid if she slept with Sara she would not be loved by Sara, yet Emy was still with her girlfriend while Sara was falling.

_Can someone love two people at the same time?_ Sara wondered when Emy was kissing her chest. _Oh, Emy…sweet, sweet celestial Emy._

_And oh, Tegan…my Tegan. I miss you, I miss you. I want you here beside me._

Sara cried during sex. Emy stared at her as she fucked her. How fucking idiotic and embarrassing it felt. _Oh, Emy._

“Listen to me,” Emy whispered, kissing her wet face. “I feel achy when I see you cry, please don’t cry.”

“You always leave after.”

“I…”

“Move…just move, Emy. Just go.” Sara sobbed.

Emy cried, too. She brushed Sara’s hair, removed the sticky strands from her face. She kissed her flushed forehead. Sara shook her off. “Don’t move so slow…I don’t want that. I don’t want your farewell kiss, your stupid romantic stuff…you lied…you…you said that you…” Sara couldn’t finish.

“I’ve got nowhere to go, Sara.” _I’ve got nowhere to go,_ Sara thought. _I wish I can go again, leave, move…but I’ve got nowhere to go._

_I can’t take it…_ the melody suddenly had words… _I can’t take it…_

“I love you,” Emy uttered…as loud as that melody…even louder because it was able to quiet it down.

Sara looked up, sniffling, wiping her nose with the back of her hands.

“I just don’t know how to break up with Natalie. I don’t know if you want to be with me.”

“I…I…” Did she? Yes, she did. So badly. Sweet Emy could make her happy and bring order in her life. “I do.”

“I don’t think you’re ready yet, Sara. You love a woman I don’t know about.”

“But I love you.” _I love you, too._

The love word did not move Emy’s emotions. Eventually, she left. She was not ready, she told Sara. Not ready to break it up with Natalie, not ready to be with confused Sara, not ready to untangle the complex twist they were in…it was pleasurable, it was hot. Sara knew that’s how Emy felt about it.

But Sara cried each night for fifteen days. She also got very sick with the flue. She emailed her mother, she told her she needed time alone, she was not happy, she was trying to work on herself…but it was all a lie. She locked herself in the apartment and worked on that melody.

She sat on the floor, sniffled, wiped her nose, cried, and strummed the instrument. She also slept on the floor, woke up in the middle of the night with a sudden shiver that made her body ache all through the morning.

She needed someone to take care of her desperately. Emy knocked on her door and Sara didn’t open. A week of sickness was usual for Sara and her asthmatic body, but when the fever took another level that she could not defeat, her coughs sounded like a woman in her nineties, and her voice was either hoarse or gone, Sara began to worry.

She woke up in the morning but could hardly get herself out of bed. She missed _Celéste_ and Emy and the coffee and their talks. She missed the refined touches, the soft kisses, the achingly wonderful feeling her body felt when Emy’s delicate hands touched it.

She missed her sister more, though.

That morning was one of the worst mornings of her sickness cycle. She went to the bathroom and sat on the toilet. She could feel her heart beating like a marching band in a festival as she peed. She could not shower, no way. She was sweaty, she smelled terrible, but if she showered she knew she would collapse. She sat in front of the toilet because she knew she was going to throw up.

She couldn’t, she tried, she spat phlegm, she made weird and horrible noises but she couldn’t throw up. She walked to the bed and hid beneath the covers. She wanted her mother to hold her for the first time since a long, long time ago. She cried and wished she had a telephone or internet access or someone to take care of her. She wished Emy would knock on her door, she would open, oh yes she would.

She dozed off and woke up each hour for God knows how many hours. She had run out of medicine, of food, of water, and of health. Was that the end? The wall of her room and the furniture looked like a puzzles as her vision began to get blurry. It was a puzzle and she was trying to reposition each piece in its right place. A red dot moved and it bothered her. _Go away._ What about the yellow dot? And the green? So many dots, so many dots…so many…

She woke up in the arms of an angel. Was that heaven? She was supposed to go to hell for sleeping with her sister and loving her sister and sleeping with Emy and loving Emy and being a terrible, terrible, terrible human being.

It was Emy, not an angel. How did she get inside? Sara looked around her and jumped up. Was it a dream? All of it? What about the colorful dots? She could swear they were real…and that puzzle, did she solve it?

“Whoa, whoa, whoa…” Emy held her as her head began to fall. What was going on? “You’re ill,” Emy said.

“I am?”

“I…I broke your door to get in, I was scared. I thought you’re out of town but the neighbors confirmed you weren’t. They said you didn’t leave your place for a week and your mail was full, too…and we were all scared, we broke your door and you were lying here…we thought you…”

Sara closed her eyes. They thought she killed herself. That was funny, why hadn’t she thought of that? That was such a good option, such an easy one. Why? Why?

“Oh, Sara.” Sara cried. “I am…sorry. I don’t know what to say, I didn’t know I hurt you this much.”

“Everything and everyone.”

“Everything and everyone hurt you?” Sara nodded. Her skin was hot, or those were her insides, which meant she still had a fever. Finally Emy was here to take care of her.

“What’s today?”

“Wednesday.”

It was the same day…okay…she was not out for so long.

“I’m going to spend the night. Natalie is out of town, she’s been out of town for the past three days. I knocked each day and you didn’t open. I know you’re angry with me. I just really love to be with you but I need time and patience, please.”

Sara felt like nothing needed to be said. Emy was searching for mercy and pity. Sara was searching for care and love and affection. If that was Tegan, she wouldn’t talk and would just kiss her till she felt better. Just like that time when they were seventeen and she had a kidney infection, even though her mum babysat her for days, Tegan’s warm kisses were the actual remedy.

 “Uh…but don’t worry, they already fixed your door. I mean your neighbors…two nice college boys.”

Emy took care of her in ways she didn’t think the woman was capable of. She cooked for her, rubbed her stomach, kissed her forehead, gave her the medicines, stroked her hair, and put her back to sleep that when she arose the next day, she felt as if she was a different Sara. She woke up before Emy. It was five in the morning. She thought of Tegan, of the song she was writing, of Emy asleep on the mattress with her cheeks flowery red. She held her guitar and began to play. The melody was smooth and beautiful.

Finally, she’d written something. Finally, she released her emotions. Finally, words were out, constructed in a melody that healed her soul.

But she could never put this on a record. It was just a melody with few words, too melancholic, too slow, too different from anything she’d written.

She wanted Tegan.

She cried for Tegan.

“I drew you while you were asleep,” Emy told her over breakfast. “You are so beautiful. I am amazed by your beauty.” She hadn’t seen Sara’s breakdown. Sara showered right after to hide the evidence.

“Thanks,” Sara murmured.

“Are you still mad at me?” Emy had cooked them breakfast. She made two omelets for each, French toast, sausages, and spiced potatoes. Sara’s appetite was at its worst; otherwise she would have devoured everything without thinking twice.

Sara shrugged. Yes, she was furious.

“Give me time, please. I want…I want to be with you but I am a coward. I don’t know how to break up with her…” Emy paused. Sara looked at her with face deadpan. She wanted to cry again. “We’ve been together for so long, she’s never done anything bad to me…I know we have had our issues recently, but…”

_Excuses_ , Sara thought. Her tears were threatening to fall.

“Her birthday is next week.” Emy sighed.

“I can’t take it,” Sara choked on her sentence. “I can’t look at you and not want you. I want you. I love you.”

Why was she saying the words her sister once told her to this strange woman? Why did she want this strange woman? What was about Emy that made her want her so maddeningly she was ready to plead while on her knees? What was it? Emy was typical. Sweet looking, yes. Blue eyes and a smile that promised a cure for past pains, yes. But Emy was typical.

“What can I do to show you that I love you, too?” Emy said in a way so desperate, pitiful, genuine.

Emy cried, too.

“I just want to be with you.”

“You don’t even love me as much as you love her,” Emy shot.

Sara halted her thoughts. Her emotions descended to zero; froze inside her heart. That was her, it has always been her…she loved, but not as much as she loved Tegan. She couldn’t admit it, she was always destined to deny and lose. But she loved Emy…God, she did love Emy so much.

“That’s not true, I swear.” Sara cried.

“She…she sent you emails, okay?” Emy got up, her food still in her plate, her face red with ire. “You didn’t log out when you used my computer…I…I didn’t mean to read them but I couldn’t, I was curious…” Sara bawled. No, it couldn’t be true. How could she be this stupid?

Tegan was right; she was carless, irresponsible, immature, and rash. And now Emy knows about her and her sister and their relationship, their sweet but harmful relationship. Where would she hide her face from Emy? No, no, no…she was destined to be alone. No, no, no…it was not happening.

“Emy…” She tried to speak, but she couldn’t explain. What would she say? _I love Tegan, I’ve always loved her…since that day in the bathroom. I felt it. I couldn’t keep it. I loved her and I couldn’t hide it. She…she felt the same…or so she tells me at times…I don’t know how she feels about me at times. I push her away and she kicks me down and that’s our relationship…it’s complicated. I can’t explain it to you, you won’t get it. Please understand because I love you, too. I love you; I want to be with you. Please, Emy, I can’t take life without you._

Of course she couldn’t say that. She couldn’t say that even if she was rotting and dying right there in front of Emy. She never voiced love the way she felt it. It was always harbored in her music. She couldn’t do it like Tegan or like other people. She knew she loved Tegan more than Tegan loved her at times, yet she never voiced it. She couldn’t say these words to anyone, never.

“Sara, you still can’t get over Kat…I can see it. And now she wants you back…I can’t put myself through this. I can’t do it…”

“Katina?” Sara asked, confusion lingeringly smacking her reality.

“Yes,” Emy replied. “She sent you, like, ten messages asking where you’ve been and that she regrets leaving you. Now tell me your heart isn’t leaping now that you know she wants your love.”

“No,” Sara exclaimed. She was relieved, so relieved. It wasn’t Tegan, oh how relieved she felt. She stood up, too. Emy hadn’t seen anything she shouldn’t see. Katina was dead and gone to Sara. “I don’t feel anything towards her. I love you, Emy. Only you,” she lied, but that was not new.

Emy’s eyes were red from crying. Even the white surrounding her blue irises was red. They were also puffy, hiding out the natural beauty of her face. But something about Emy crying seemed sharply attractive, something about that redness and puffiness. Sara stepped closer, she wanted her. She wanted her more than she wanted anything, she wanted her the same way she had wanted Tegan that day in the bathroom.

“Sara, please.”

“I’ll…I’ll give you time, I’ll wait for you, I’ll do anything…I just wanna be with you. Just wanna touch you.” She had never been so vocal, not even to her sister, whom she loved twice more than she loved Emy. How could her heart hold so much love and how fair could she be dividing the pieces of her heart to this stranger and to Tegan?

“No…no, Sara, don’t touch me.” Emy shoved the pale hands off of her. Sara retreated, her mouth agape with stupefaction. “We can’t have sex and then when we’re done you throw a tantrum about me teasing you. We can’t do that when you’re emotionally a wreck and I am still with someone. This was all a mistake and I shouldn’t have slept with you. I was happier when I was your friend, just your friend.”

“Why don’t you believe me, why?” Sara shouted. It was loud, it was terrifying. Emy’s eyes widened and her feet took slow steps to the back. Sara didn’t mean to sound so possessive and clingy. She was just like her sister; she was acting like her sister.

That’s what Tegan had felt…

_Oh my God…Oh, Tegan…Oh, baby._

Emy left…that’s how Tegan felt when she, too, had left.

_Oh, Tegan…Oh, baby. I’ll do anything to get you here. I’ll write you poems and songs and say I love you loudly. I’m sorry._

But how could she say it? She didn’t know how to get in touch with Tegan. She could call her on a payphone, but she wanted privacy when it came to her emotions. She could send her an email but Emy had her email opened on her laptop. She could…she could send her a letter; send it to her place in Vancouver. Like old times, like the good times, like those people in the novels. Letters were romantic and she could say everything, every little thing that dwelled in her chest.

_You cried so hard and I pushed you away, you screamed so loud Jen called the police on you. I didn’t know…I didn’t get it. I didn’t know emotions can float this way, so freely and with no direction until they land on the wrong people. I didn’t know a heart can be divided. I am sorry. I love you._

_I have never told you that I love you so honestly because of my fear but I demanded it. I know you were scared. I wrote you love songs, I wrote you poems and you did, too…but I was always the one who demanded more and I was selfish, always taking not giving you any space. I wanted to have Katina and you at the same time but when you needed Jen I protested. I am sorry. I didn’t get it. What we are in is something beyond magical, Tegan. Half of my heart is connected to half of yours…but the other halves…why do they stray? I love someone but I love you, too._

_Do you still love me, Tegan? Did you ever love me? I didn’t run away because I hated you, because I didn’t want to be with you, because I didn’t want you to love another, because I only wanted you to be with me while not being with me; I ran away because I didn’t know who I was and what we were. Why was I made your twin and why did I fall for you?_

_I never understood you and I was always scared of you even if I was the one in charge of this relationship—this complex, shattering, heartbreaking relationship. Tegan, we will never be able to say we are together, do you know that? I will never be able to hold your hands in public, kiss you in front of people, say jokes about us in bed, about moments we shared, about awkward sex situations or about the romantic moments we had together. Tegan, we will never be able to get married nor have children together. But I don’t care, I just love you, I’ve always loved you. I know I didn’t like to voice it a lot, but I wish I can scream it at you right now. I wish you can hear it._

_I ran to Montreal because I love you and I didn’t know how to say it to you. You are my sister, the most precious human in my life. No matter how many women I love, how many people I meet, how many girls I see, you will always be number one. You are number one. I wish I can hold you and whisper the words I never liked to say out loud to you. I wish I’d repeat those moments in your bed, that moment in the bathroom…that first moment I realized the missing piece. I wish you are here with me. I wish you would fix me, help me, show me love and stay with me._

_And if I can’t say these words out loud when I see you, I wish you would forgive me because I don’t even know who I am at times and it’s hard for me to speak when I’m around you._

 

 

 


	4. Morning Comes

The pain surged through her body, reaching her head and colliding with her nerves as she squeezed her eyes shut. She heard her chest pounding and felt the motion of it rising up and falling down with the hand that rested there. That’s what the world went on about? That’s what people wrote songs about and described so beautifully? It was that feeling of pure pain that was shredding her insides? First time hurts, but that was not worth it. So not worth it. It was that same feeling her sister described in specific details in her diary? There must have been something wrong. That was nothing special. That was only pain and a terrible sticky feeling between her legs.

She wondered if her boyfriend felt the same. His eyes pierced through her when she looked at him. She felt shy all of a sudden and wanted to hide her body and face and close her eyes again. He was nice and she loved him but that was the worst experience she had had with him. Maybe she was one of those who hated sex so much. Some people did, she heard her mother talking about it in her study group one day. She was eleven and she was just back from school with Sara. They heard their mother and her friends talking about sex. She and her sister laughed silently. It was awkward for her. She had just been given the talk a month before, right after she got her first period.

She remembered that day clearly. She went into her sister’s room and told her what their mother had discussed. Sara laughed in her face and said she had been given the talk two months before and had started her period three months before. She felt left out and neglected knowing that Sara could hide personal things that sisters were supposed to share normally. A few months after, she came to the realization that getting one’s period was not special and it was the most terrible thing her body had to go through. She and her sister talked about how much they despised that aspect and wondered loudly why they had to go through it. Their mother shook her head laughing, but they never really got it. Till now, Tegan hated all that and now that she was lying in bed next to her boyfriend after sex, she loathed all those things that had to accompany the bundle of being a woman.

She bet Jeremy was not hurt, why would he be hurt? He didn’t have a vagina. She asked anyway, “Are you hurt?”

He chuckled.

“No.” He kissed her temple. “You are, though.”

“How do you know?” He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her cheek. She felt overwhelmed and dirty at the same time. She wanted to run away. His body was sweaty and it did not smell nice. The room did not smell nice. His come did not smell nice. Nothing smelled nice.

“I can see it.” He kissed her cheek again. She hated the saliva he put on her face. She shivered. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I guess it’s because it’s your first time. I promise you next time will be better.”

“Yeah.” She didn’t want to have a next time. She felt too tired to believe that.

Tegan wanted to cry as she got dressed and waited for her mother to pick her up. In the car her mother asked her what’s wrong. Tegan didn’t say anything.

“You and Jeremy had a fight?” Sonia inquired.

“Kinda,” she whispered.

“About what?”

“I don’t wanna talk about it. I wanna go home.”

“Do you want ice cream?” Sonia tried.

“No. I wanna go home.” Tegan started crying. “Is Sara home? I wanna talk to her.”

“Is it about Sara?”

“Mum, stop. I just don’t want to talk to you right now. Can’t you get it?”

Sonia didn’t say anything else. Tegan felt that she had been harsh with her mother. She was going to apologize later, but first she had to speak to her sister. She had to ask her if that was normal. If the feeling that accompanied the first time was normal. She felt icky and disgusting. She wished she hadn’t done it with Jeremy and she wished someone had warned her before.

Sara was writing music on her bed, the way she did every Friday night these days. After Megan’s idiotic move, Sara didn’t have any other girl home. She wrote songs in her room, watched TV, talked to Tegan, and spent time with their friends. She was normal, as normal as Sara could be. But there was also one mysterious thing in their relationship: the affection.

Sara had been quite affectionate lately. That was not normal for Sara because, since they turned eleven, both of them began to part even if they were close. They developed new personalities and argued more than got along. They did laugh and share jokes, but the common knowledge amongst everyone who knew them was that they had the relationship of kittens.

However, Sara changed. She cuddled with her sister when she felt sad. She kissed her sister’s cheek after a long, warm talk. She told her sister personal stories about her and Megan and spoke of her fantasies that made her sister blush. It was Sara that made Tegan want to have sex with Jeremy. Oh yes, now she knew it. Sara, it was her all along. She exaggerated the beauty of sex, implicitly led Tegan to follow her steps and throw herself at her boyfriend. Maybe Sara didn’t mean it, but it was her.

What would Sara say when she heard it? Would she praise her? She hoped Sara would. Tegan wanted to feel big and mature in front of her sister. She wanted Sara to be proud of her. _I had sex. I’m just like you…but I…I hated it._

“Tegan?” Sara questioned. No, she could not say she hated it. Sara would laugh at her and accuse her of being terrible in bed, which she was sure that was the case. Otherwise, sex wouldn’t be as overrated as it was. “What’s wrong?”

Tegan cried heavily as she stood by the door.

“Close the door and come here. Talk to me. Did Jeremy do something bad?” Sara was sweeter than ever and cared more than Tegan had imagined.

“Jeremy and I…” Tegan looked at the mattress with the blue duvet covering it. It looked inviting. The pillows looked warm enough to call her name in sedative whispers. Or was that just her sister’s calming voice? She stepped closer.

“You what? You broke up?” Sara put her guitar down and took Tegan’s small hands. Tegan winced when she climbed up the bed. She took off her shoes and shook her head. “What happened?”

“We had…we fucked.”

Sara looked at her sister blankly. _We fucked._

Sara remained silent.

Tegan cried more.

“I’ll get you some…water and…maybe, if you want, you can tell me what…why you’re crying.”

_Because we fucked and it hurt so bad._

Tegan took off her oversized black hoodie and stayed in her yellow tank top. She took off her jeans and kicked her socks. Sara came back with a glass of water. Tegan thanked her as she gulped the cold liquid.

“Was it your first time?”

“Yeah.” Tegan felt ashamed. She was in her underwear. Sara looked at her pale legs and she looked at them, too. She felt shy once again.

“You regret it?” Sara looked up at her. She sat next to her and they both pushed their bodies underneath the mattress.

“Yes,” Tegan answered quickly. “It wasn’t the way I expected it.” She put her hand on her hot abdomen underneath her top and stroked the fiery skin. “It felt bad. It hurts so bad.”

“Oh.” Sara chuckled. “I heard that’s normal.”

“It didn’t hurt you?” She asked, confused but also relaxed because Sara said it was normal.

“I had sex with a girl. No, it was not the best, but it was not bad. Still, though…she umm…” Sara felt too embarrassed to say it.

Sara blushed, too. She flipped her hair. Her body used her elbow for leverage, pushing her breasts heavenward. They looked nice tucked inside that fuzzy hoodie. Tegan could see the tiny nipples poking the blue material.

“You don’t have to say it, Sara.”

“No, it’s fine.” Sara giggled. “I just don’t wanna make you feel uncomfortable.”

“Tell me so I tell you.” She wanted to know about Sara’s first time in details. Sara talked about Megan, but not about the first time with Megan, not about the sex with Megan. They had sex and it was nice…that’s what she knew.

“Okay.” Sara laid her head next to her sister’s. They stared at each other, which felt weird because Tegan noticed, for the first time, how alike they looked. It was like looking at the mirror. Her sister, though, was gorgeous. Her eyes were miraculous.

“It was when you and mama went shopping.” Tegan nodded. A smile radiated in her heart but didn’t appear on her face. Sara hadn’t called their mother that in so long. She stopped using the word ‘ _mama’_ since she turned nine. “She was over and we were making out. We made out a lot. I knew something would happen since that morning. I had a feeling. I was horny, like very horny.”

Tegan didn’t like hearing that. She had never felt horny around Jeremy. Was that normal? She felt something when they made out, but she was sure it was not being _horny._

“I guess I made the first move. I touched her breasts.” Tegan’s eyes widened. “If this…if it makes you feel weird, I can stop.” Tegan didn’t want Sara to stop or to feel that she was being judged or her love and sex were being fetishized.

“No,” Tegan mumbled. “Please continue.”

“Her breasts always attracted me. They were the perfect size. I used to compare our bodies but then I realized I’m not jealous of what she has, I’m just very attracted to it.” Sara’s cheeks were like the roses in her mother’s garden; soft-looking, asking to be touched, once touched Tegan would discover how velvety they felt on her fingertips—she stroked the petals till they became wrinkly and torn in her hand. “Anyway, she moaned and I pushed her body towards me. I…I put my hands in her shirt and then in her bra and began to feel her skin. It was soft, I loved it. Her nipples got hard and I felt mine getting hard, too. She asked if she could touch me like that and I said yes. It was…it was slow. We touched each part of each other’s skins and inspected then we reached…that part.” Sara giggled loudly and Tegan did, too. She could kiss her. Her lips were beautiful. She could kiss her the way she kissed her when they were seven. She loved to kiss her lips and hated it when her mother scolded them. She couldn’t understand it then, but now she could. It was wrong to kiss your sister that way, but, God, she would kiss her right now because she looked so innocent.

“She pushed her finger in me. It was not bad. She has small fingers so it wasn’t bad. It was not good, though. It took me awhile to come.”

Tegan hoped the frown that her face wore didn’t catch Sara’s attention. It felt like Sara was speaking of another experience. She remembered that she hadn’t come, or maybe she did, she didn’t know. It didn’t happen like it did to Jeremy. When he was done, she opened her eyes and waited. _That’s it?_ She asked herself.

What if wearing a condom didn’t make her come?

Sara’s eyes were two hourglasses and her reflection in them was the sand. Her hair was tangled in Sara’s fingers as her sister stroked and waited.

“Megan said it wasn’t bad for her but it hurt a little bit,” Sara talked.

“I…” She was chocking on her words. She cried again.

“Oh, don’t talk about it if it hurts you. Did he force you?” Sara’s breaths were closer. She missed that kiss that made her feel that everything would be better.

“No.” Tegan shook her head. “I took my clothes off. I told him I’m ready. We made out and he touched me and then it just happened.”

“I’m sorry you feel this way.”

Tegan cried for an hour while Sara did her homework. Why wasn’t Sara being sweet to her? Hugging her? Cuddling with her? Why was Sara cold to her? Why wasn’t Sara telling her that everything would be alright? Sara wasn’t even proud of her.

Sara didn’t even mock her.

“Are you going to sleep here tonight?”

“Can I?”

“Sure.” Sara yawned and took off her hoodie. Her nipples were light brown; Tegan could see the circles through the wife beater. Her breasts swayed a little when she bent down to pick up her pants from the floor. Sara’s ass was small and nice. Sara put on black shorts and tied her hair then climbed in bed.

“Don’t you wanna change? Want me to give you some shorts? Pajamas? Don’t you at least wanna…change your underwear?”

“No,” Tegan mumbled. She didn’t want to move. She was comfortable like that. She didn’t care how dirty she felt.

“Did you…bleed?” Sara was still sitting up, staring at her older twin, whose tears continued running past her heavy lids.

When Tegan didn’t answer, Sara continued, “I know it’s not, like, my fucking business, but they said that’s what happens, and, like, I wanna know.”

“Only a little bit. I saw some pink stuff on the sheets when I got up, very light.”

“I never did.”

Tegan wondered if that meant Sara had never lost her hymen. Did fingers feel the same? She never tried that. She could push her fingers in herself and discover. Did people usually do that? Jeremy once joked about touching one’s self and she didn’t get it. Did Sara push her fingers in herself? If she pushed them in someone’s pussy, she sure pushed them in hers. She wondered what it would feel like to push fingers in Sara’s pussy.

She felt ashamed just thinking about it. Her sister was looking at her and she felt ashamed.

“Why did you do it if you’re not ready?”

_Why? Because you made me do it._

“I wanted to.” _Because you made it seem like it’s magical._ “I love him and I thought I’m ready.”

“I’ve never been ready. I just did it.” Sara shrugged. “But…but I would have waited, maybe, for someone special.”

It felt like no words should be said after that, so Tegan didn’t say anything else. She worried about lots of things but she couldn’t name any of them. Her mind was a jungle and a forest full of animals mooing, cooing, meowing, roaring, barking, twittering, neighing, and howling—all voices, all shapes, all colors.

“I hope you feel better when morning comes,” Sara said gently.

 Tegan woke up in the morning with her ears buzzing because she slept for few hours only.

She tried to avoid her boyfriend as much as she could in school. When it was time for P.E., they had to meet. She walked into the gymnasium with her head down, eyes stealing glances at her smiling boyfriend. She tried not to walk towards him but her feet took her there. Damned, little things.

“Teetee, are you alright?”

“Don’t call me that,” Tegan scolded.

“Right, right, only Sara can.” Jeremy chuckled. When Tegan didn’t attempt a smile, his brows furrowed. “Are you still hurt?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Jeremy. Can we not?”

“I’m sorry.” Tegan looked into his eyes. They had a strange color. She had never noticed how wonderfully exquisite the color of his eyes were before the sex. The whole time he was thrusting in her, her eyes were fixed on his. They were not grey, not green, and not blue. Not even hazel or brown. They were a strange mix of these pigments and they switched according to his mood. Now they seemed deep blue. A moment earlier they were light green. After sex the previous day they were a nice shade of grey.

“It’s fine.” She smiled…only because he had those beautiful eyes. Only because he didn’t mean to hurt her. Only because he loved her. Did she love him, too? She did, oh yes. But she didn’t love sex with him and hoped it would never ever happen again.

She thought of telling him she’s not ready and explaining how it felt to her. She couldn’t, though. First time she tried to talk about it, Sara joined them at lunch and she was thrillingly ranting about _“that motherfucker in math”_ who tried to prove her wrong, thinking she was “ _a dumbass_ ” because she was a woman, but then her answers were the correct ones.

Sara flipped her hair like that girl in _Clueless._ Tegan despised that film and thought it’s silly, but now she felt like watching it again.

When she tried to tell Jeremy over the phone, her mother kept passing by. She picked the wrong day to stay at home. When she tried to tell Jeremy in his place before they made out, his mother came home. It was a nice save, but she felt like whenever she wanted to tell him, she caved in.

A week later he said he was going to come over. She looked at her reflection in the mirror to fix herself. Her mother was around the house. Her twin sister was taking a shower. _Good._ She took a breath.

“I’m ready,” she told herself as she looked at her face. “I can do it.” She shook her head. “I can tell him I’m not ready.”

The bell rang and Sonia opened the door. Tegan stayed in her room.

“Tee, Jeremy’s here,” her mother shouted. “I’m going out, dear. Tell your sister to dry her hair when she leaves the bathroom.”

Her heart raced as the door was shut again. Bathroom. Sister.

“Tegan?” Jeremy said. His footsteps were near. “Teegles.” His footsteps were on the creaking stairs.

Mindlessly, her feet dragged her to the bathroom. She felt like a ship coursing through water. She was smooth, she was quick. She closed the bathroom’s door quickly. She jumped into the bathtub. She cupped her sister’s mouth in one swift motion as the hot water drenched both of them. Her breaths were heavy and uneven.

“Tegan? Where are you?”

“Uh…I…I’m in the shower.” Sara’s eyes were wide. They were scared. Tegan mouthed an apology. Her sister was naked and she was fully dressed and the hot water was hitting both of them.

“I’m gonna come in. I thought Sara’s in the bathroom…”

“No, no,” Tegan shouted.

They both felt the doorknob turning. Tegan hugged her sister tightly in case her boyfriend opened the door and saw two bodies behind the glass door instead of one. _Her nipples got hard and I felt mine getting hard, too_. She was sure their glass door was well blurred, so he couldn’t see them well. _Sara must be terrified_ , Tegan thought.

“Oh, why? I miss you. I wanna touch you.” Tegan let go of her sister when Jeremy didn’t come inside. She took her first glance at her sister’s nude body. She blushed deeply when Sara pulled her face upward. Sara’s eyes were fire.

“Uh…I…” She almost cried. She had invaded her sister’s privacy…again. She had never felt so embarrassed. Her sister was angry, yet she was quiet enough and helping enough to hold it in.

“Say you’re sick,” Sara whispered. Did Sara know? Did she understand?

“I’m kinda very sick. Like, I just felt it.”

“Why did you tell me to come over then? You could have told me you’re sick. Plus, it’s fine, baby. I’d take that risk. I just really wanna feel you.”

“Eww,” Sara mouthed. “Say you have your period. Say it quickly.”

“I…” Tegan hesitated. “No,” she whispered. “That’s too private.”

“You slept with him, idiot. Nothing is too private.”

“Are you talking to someone?” Jeremy asked.

“No, Jeremy, listen…I…I have, like, terrible cramps, like I started just now and it’s, like, a mess, you don’t wanna see. I had to take a shower…and…”

Sara was muffling her laughter.

“Oh…alright. I get it. You don’t have to explain.” Tegan cupped her sister’s mouth again. “I guess I’ll be going. Feel better, babe.” She could hear his sigh through the door. She didn’t let go of her sister’s mouth until she made sure his steps were gone. The entire time she silenced her sister’s approaching laughs, she couldn’t help not staring at the beautiful breasts her sister had. Her nipples were a lighter shade than she had thought. She felt stupid thinking her sister’s body was different than hers. They had the same body. But her sister had so much hair between her legs. Tegan had shaved all of it before having sex with Jeremy. She thought that people who had sex did so. But, anyway, her sister was single and wasn’t having sex with anyone, so it was normal to have hair, Tegan reckoned.

“I said tell him you have your period not make him scared for life.” Sara chuckled. She flipped her wet hair under the water and sighed. Her breasts moved and they looked beautiful. Tegan’s eyelashes fluttered as she blushed. “You’re hiding,” Sara whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Tegan said.

Sara stepped out of the shower and reached for a towel. She shrugged as she wrapped the white material around her rosy slim body. “You scared me but then I figured it out. I’m just glad I wasn’t doing something personal.”

“Personal like what? Peeing? I think taking a shower is more personal.” Sara looked at her for few seconds and then giggled. “What?”

“Nothing.” Sara walked to the sink.

Tegan stepped out of the shower, too. She decided to strip herself and expose her body to Sara. It was only fair. She began taking off her wet pants and then her t-shirt. Her heart was beating quickly. The only person she had gotten naked around was Jeremy. She knew she shouldn’t feel this embarrassed or anxious since Sara was her sister and had the same body, but it felt tacky and strange that she was taking her clothes off slowly in the presence of her sister.

“What are you doing?” Sara asked as she brushed her hair. “Wanna shower? Want me to go?”

“N…no,” Tegan stuttered. “I think that…” She removed her tank top and reached for her bra. “I saw you naked and you should see me naked, too. It’s only fair.” She let the small material fall, revealing petite breasts to her sister’s widened eyes.

“T…Tegan, no…” Sara was not looking at her body. It offended her. “You don’t have to.” She wanted to. They were twins. If she didn’t let her sister see her naked, she felt that she was losing some of the connection they were having. They were supposed to share everything now; stories, experiences, images, sights, scenes—everything.

“I want to.” Tegan slipped her panties off. When she did, she felt shy. Not because she was stark naked, but because her panties were pink with blue flowers on them. Sara wore boy shorts, which looked attractive on her. Tegan was still wearing those silly little girl panties. It was embarrassing.

Sara now was staring at Tegan’s lower half. Tegan stared, too. Her legs were closed while she stood. Why did it feel so strange? Sara was her sister, so what? It just felt strange that she was standing there, exposing herself to her sister. She felt stupid. She wished she hadn’t done that.

“Tegan?” Sara looked at her again. She felt cold. “Why are you hiding from Jeremy?”

“I don’t want to have sex with him,” Tegan said bluntly.

“Oh…” Sara looked as if she was puzzled. It felt like not the right conversation to be discussed while Tegan was naked, but she couldn’t move her body to get dressed. She wanted Sara to talk, to break away the feeling of nudity. _Say something!_

“Well, why don’t you tell him?” Sara suggested after a moment’s thought.

“I…” Yes, why? Why couldn’t she just tell him? Why would she rather hop in the shower with her sister than tell him?

“I don’t know what to say.” She began to cry.

“Oh, no.” Sara approached her. “Does he hurt you? Force you? Tell me, I’ll kick that motherfucker in the balls.”

“No.” Tegan shook her head. Sara’s hands were swinging, trying to touch but afraid to do so. She hugged Sara instead, crying on her damp shoulder.

“Te…Tegan.” Sara pushed her off gently. “Get dressed.” Tegan couldn’t stop crying. She wanted to vent and there was her sister telling her to get dressed. “I’ll go get dressed in my room and we’ll talk, okay?”

Sara left her alone in the bathroom and she had no clothes but her wet ones. She cried more. She walked to her room quickly, afraid some ghost might catch her nudity. Sara’s door was shut. Their step father had put their doors back only a week before. Tegan hated that. She loved it when their doors were out of the way. She could see Sara all the time and know what Sara was doing all the time. Now Sara had her own shelter and Tegan disliked that.

Sara knocked on her door after a few minutes. She opened while sniffling. Sara was dressed in sweatpants and a tight top, which she rarely wore around the house. Tegan was wearing pajamas.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sara asked when they both sat on Tegan’s bed.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Why…why don’t you want to have sex with him?”

“It’s not nice. It’s not what I wanted. It hurt so bad and it felt nothing like you described.”

Sara grabbed her hand to make her look up. She looked at Sara, whose soft lips were entrapped between white teeth. “You are innocent and sweet,” Sara mumbled. Her eyes were sweet, Tegan thought. They way they looked at her, it was sweet. It felt like Sara was touching her inner soul. It was sweet.

“Did you come, Tegan?”

Tegan gasped. Sara giggled. She let go of her sister’s hand and wiped a couple of falling tears. Her stomach was aching terribly. She hoped she didn’t catch a bad cold. “I…”

“Oh, Tegan. “ Sara laughed. “This feels strange to talk about.” Sara’s hair was still wet and Tegan wanted to take each lock in her hands and brush it. Her hair was beautiful and Tegan wanted to touch it. “You don’t even touch yourself, do you?”

“What?”

“You don’t know anything about sex.”

“Teach me,” Tegan shot.

“Oh.” Sara’s pupils went up and down.

“I’m the one who’s terrible at it, right?”

“I honestly think both of you are.” Sara put her head on the pillow and laughed. “This is fun.”

“Don’t make fun of me,” Tegan moaned.

“You didn’t come, of course it sucks. But did he?”

“Yes.” Tegan slept beside her.

“How do you know?”

“I know, okay?” Tegan felt annoyed. Maybe she shouldn’t have opened up. She knew Sara was going to make fun of her.

“You’ve never masturbated?”

“No…no.” Only boys did, right?

“Oh, wow.”

“Have you?” Tegan asked curiously.

“Girl, if I haven’t, I would have been dead. It’s the best thing ever. You should try it.” Sara switched her body, lying on her stomach while raising her head to look at her sister. She wiggled her eyebrows. “Wanna know how?”

“I finger myself, right?” Tegan felt stupid and uneducated. How did people even know about sex so much? There were the basic things they took at school but nobody told them how girls came and what it felt like, nobody told them girls had sex with themselves, nobody told them about the body of women and how it functioned. It was all a mystery. They had gotten their basic sex talk from their mother and to be summarized, it was something like: the boy sticks his penis in the girl’s vagina and they make a child when he releases some sticky white stuff and that’s why she gets a period, because it’s necessary to make babies.

Thinking about it now, their mother was doing a terrible job at parenting knowing she was a therapist. She should have clarified more. She should have told them about the things they didn’t know. It would have been awkward, yes, but it wouldn’t have been more awkward than this.

“Silly, Teetee.” Sara giggled. “You rub your clit, idiot. That’s the magic. When I figured it out, it was the best.”

“I am stupid.” Tegan sobbed. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about. I barely know anything. Why am I so stupid? Why does everyone know but me?”

“Oh, shit.” Sara sighed. “Do you want me to, like, help you or something? It’s easy. You should come. It feels good…so, like, when you sleep with him next time you’ll know what to do if he sucks at it.” Sara giggled. “This feels so weird to talk about.”

“Help me?” Tegan paused her weeping and looked at her twin with dilated orbs, searching for the yes and hoping for the no. “How?”

“Simple. I’ll show you how; I’ll direct you through it…” Sara paused. She sat up. “I know it’s really, umm, weird and I really don’t mean anything wrong but we saw each other naked, it’s fine…if you want to.”

“Yes, okay…yes. Teach me everything you know.” A sense of elation hit her where it never had been before. It kicked down under and her eyes widened. What was that? Her stomach cramped. What was that? She was going to understand what her sister ranted about, finally. She was going to experience what her sister made others experience.

She felt lucky. She was lucky. She was going to know what it was like. But it was wrong, right? To want that? To want to know that? It was wrong to want to kiss Sara and play with her hair. It was also wrong to want Sara’s fingers to touch that extremely rosy part of her body. But it didn’t matter because she deserved to know what Megan knew and deserved to feel what Megan felt, what Sara felt, what people felt, what sex really was. And, anyway, like Sara said, it would be the last time. When morning would come, they would forget about it and go on about their lives as they did each day, except better, because she would stop hiding and would know what to do if she slept with Jeremy once again.

“Maybe not everything, but I’m gonna teach you the basics and…” Sara was blushing, it was adorable. “And you’ll figure it out on your own.”

“Okay.” She took a deep breath. “Should I take my pajamas off?”

“Uh…” Sara looked at her attire. She blushed more. “D…do what you’re comfortable with…but I can do it without you getting totally naked.”

“I want to.” She gulped. “I want to see what you do and how you do it.”

Tegan could hear her sister’s heavy breaths and drumming chest. Her sister was nervous. She was not. She pulled down her pants and underwear quickly and kicked them down. Just then she felt a pinch of bashfulness color her cheeks when Sara took a look between her legs; a look full of wonder and…lust. That’s lust, Tegan assumed.

Now Tegan knew where the beating was coming from. It was that part. How wonderful was that, how magical! She wanted to laugh. Was that a pussy or a lighthouse that shone bright to attract people like Sara? It was beating and wanting. Why didn’t that happen with Jeremy?

Jeremy was quick and clumsy and she was scared and nervous, that’s why.

“Is it nice looking?” she asked curiously. “Like how a girl’s pussy should be?”

Sara looked at her in puzzlement and did not answer.

“I mean, you’re gay, you would know. I don’t know.” She shrugged her shoulders.

“It looks just like mine,” Sara said in astonishment. Tegan giggled sheepishly, and so Sara did. “So of course it looks good.” Sara winked.

“Touch it,” Tegan mumbled. She was aroused…she felt it. She finally felt it. She wanted a touch down there, right there.

“Okay, so…” Sara breathed. “First things first, you have to be wet in order to enjoy it. Were you wet with Jeremy?”

Tegan didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. “I guess.”

“It’s not something you guess, it’s something you know.”

“I do get wet often. Isn’t that normal? To release fluids?”

Sara laughed in a very adorable way. Tegan wanted to touch her lips and feel their texture. “Yes, Tee, it’s normal.” Carefully, Sara’s finger touched the hot area between her legs. Tegan jumped. “You are wet.”

“Yeah,” Tegan whispered. It felt strange. Jeremy didn’t touch her there. Sara’s finger was between her folds, going up and down, up and down. She watched it as she tried to catch her breath. It felt…good. “It feels good.”

“Yeah?” Sara touched one part that made her jump again. She shook as Sara began to rotate gently. “This is your clit. This is where you rub and can come easily. This part is made for your pleasure, that’s its purpose.” How come nobody had told her about it then? Why did people hide that? She loved the clit. It felt wonderful to rub it.

“Oh, God,” she moaned loudly. “This feels so fucking good.” Sara was laughing. “I can’t keep my eyes open.”

“You can close them. I’ll rub it till you come and then you can start doing it on your own.” Sara pushed another finger in her slit and it started messing there. The rotations increased in speed and strength and Tegan felt like jumping and feared jumping too high her head would break the roof and reach up cloud nine. This was nirvana. She’d remember all of it when morning came.

“Who told you about this? Oh, fuck, fuck. This is the best.” Sara’s laughter was loud right now but her eyes were sweet and charming whenever Tegan took a peek at them. “I think it’s coming, oh my God, I think it’s happening.” Tegan was loud.

“Nobody taught me. I discovered it by myself when I was eleven. Read more about it from mum’s books.” Sara’s breaths were coming in an irregular rhythm, too. “When you sleep with your boyfriend and he sucks, just teach him. Do it to yourself and he’ll get it.” Tegan could barely make the last part because her ears began to buzz and her eyes began to roll to the back of her head. She was hit with an unfamiliar sense of pleasure. It was the pleasure Sara talked about and everybody else celebrated. She knew she was on cloud nine without having to jump or break the roof. Her pussy was the lighthouse and the mast that steered the ship and everything that was the center of something. She came, holding onto her sister the best she could while her sister breathed close to her.

And when she came down from her high, she opened her eyes and took a glance at her sister behind swollen lids. She felt so much love for this person who helped her know and discover. Her hand tried to reach the soft hair of her sister’s but she couldn’t because her lips were suddenly captured in an abrupt kiss that made her gasp, but also jump into it. She moaned, rolling her hips upward as her sister’s tongue began to devour her. She had never been kissed like that and it felt animalistic, as if it belonged to nature. It was what nature made, and it was them. They were celebrating them, their union, sisterhood, the natural instinct they shared—they loved each other more than it was normal because they were twins and Tegan loved nothing more than this feeling of her sister’s soft lips moving with hers. This was right.

Sara’s hair covered her face as she looked somewhere else after pulling away from that kiss. Her lungs were wheezing and Tegan tried to touch her face but Sara pushed her hand off.  “This is…umm…this is how you do it.”

Sara jumped off the bed. Tears masked her eyelids. Tegan could see them despite the rapid blinking.

“Sara.” The older twin sat up quickly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Sara blinked. Tegan closed her legs because the breeze was hitting her still wet sex. It didn’t feel right. “This umm, we should umm…forget about this. I mean, like…” Sara shook her head as tears collected in her eyes. “Nobody should know about this. It won’t happen again.” She left the room like a fly passing through a door.

Tegan fell silent as she thought about each moment in details. Sweat trailed down her legs as it had collected in the back of her bent knees. It was not wrong and she didn’t understand Sara. Her sister regretted it? Why would she? It was normal. The kiss felt normal and the sex felt normal.

_The sex._ No, it wasn’t sex. It was just…teachings. Oh, God. She loved it. She wanted it again. She put her fingers on her clit and rubbed. It felt good but not as good as Sara’s touches. What was happening? She came. She cried.

It was wrong.

Sara didn’t talk to her for two days and Jeremy didn’t try to get close to her, too. Remembering what she’d told him, she didn’t really feel bothered he wasn’t even trying to kiss her. Her mind was immensely occupied in the thoughts of her distant sister. They sat together at lunch but Sara ate quietly and left before her and Jeremy did.

They were back to the start. They didn’t talk. They separated themselves in their rooms. They didn’t even smile at each other and Tegan didn’t understand any of it. Tegan cried each night and hoped Sara would hear her, but Sara never did.

They stayed this way for five days. Their mother didn’t sense anything wrong because they weren’t hitting each other and their mother was only alarmed when they hurt each other. But this hurt more than hands slapping cheeks or fists punching faces; silence hurt worse than words or actions.

They had to go to their father’s on Saturday; they had to share a room and a bed. They had to act as if nothing bothered them. Tegan earned a deathly glare in the morning after leaving the bathroom. She was so sensitive that the indignant look made her weep in her bedroom. Sara had offered to touch her but Sara was the one punishing her. It didn’t deserve all the big deal, it’s not like they were going to get married. Tegan wished she would get it, but she never did.

Her fingers never stopped fooling around with her body and imagining how it would feel if Sara’s hands touched her in the ways she was slowly discovering. She wondered if Sara did the same, if she wished someone else in particular was putting their hands on her like that. Was there anyone better than Sara?

Her sister was great and she was also angry and upset with her. Tegan couldn’t bear it no more. She decided to talk at night, but she also decided to pack more clothes…just in case things descended to the edge of disaster, which seemed likely with the looks Sara was giving her in the car.

They had dinner with their dad and they were quiet. Their dad joked but they remained quiet. Stephen tried to catch their attention but none of them interacted. He sighed in defeat and allowed them to go to the room early because, “Tomrrow’s gonna be Sunday Funday,” he said.

Sara rolled her eyes and Tegan didn’t give any sign of interest. Sara went to the bedroom, Tegan to the bathroom, then vice versa. When Sara came back, Tegan spoke about her feelings. She said the past week had been hell to her; it had been the worst of all because she couldn’t understand why Sara was angry.

“It was one time thing,” she said. “We won’t do it again.”

Sara turned around and pretended as if she was alone in the room. Tegan spent the night crying beside her but the younger twin seemed to be devoid of all human emotions.

Sunday Funday seemed more like the day of Satan and his friends. Breakfast was bad. Tegan decided she’d stay at their father’s.

“Why?” Stephen asked.

“Because I want to. I think it’s better this way. To live with you while Sara lives there.” Sara stood still in the kitchen as they discussed.

“Why do you think so?” Tegan shrugged. _Because Sara doesn’t like me no more. Sara thinks touching me is a mistake and she’s making a big deal of it. It was just quick sex; it wasn’t like…_ Tegan began to cry.

She and her sister had sex and that was not normal.

“Fine, I’ll go home. I’ll go home.”

Sonia tried to talk to her in the car and at home. She tried to talk to Sara, who preferred irritating silence than lies or made up stories to save herself from the dramatic scene.

“There’s no point with you two anymore.” Sonia sighed. “Therapy it is.”

Nobody said anything. Each went to her room.

Tegan thought of therapy and what they might tell their therapist. That they had sex? That Sara was showing her how to have sex? Their therapist would tell their mother and their mother would be sad and disappointed.

Sara was scared for a reason.

When they were young, five or six (Tegan couldn’t remember), they used to kiss each other on the lips the way their parents did. They thought that’s what people did. Their mother didn’t like it. Their mother separated them and separated their rooms. It wasn’t sexual, it never was.

But now it was different. That kiss Sara planted on her lips was not only sexual, but full of passion that just now she could understand. She loved that kiss and wanted more of it, and that alone felt sick.

She fell asleep and saw in a dream Sara’s breasts. She touched them and squeezed them. They were soft and beautiful. She kissed Sara’s lips and fingered Sara. They were in a green meadow and Sara was moving like a horse. Her hair was golden, not brown. Her hair was made of gold and it was swaying as Sara rode her fingers. The sun was too hot, though. Tegan was sweating. Sara was making horse sounds. Tegan loved them.

“Is that what you want?” Sara said.

“Yes. I want it. I love it.”

“Is that what you wanna see? Will you be happy with this? This was wrong but I can’t get it out of my head.” Sara sobbed.

Sara, the horse, was fading in the background and the meadow was getting darker. The voices felt like they were screamed on a big stage. “I feel the need to touch you.” Sara wept.

Her eyes opened to see darkness and a crying twin sitting next to her. “Is that what you fucking want?” the sister almost shouted.

Tegan felt scared. “Is that it?” Sara’s hands wrapped around her neck. Tegan blinked. “It’s because of you. We’re sick. I’m sick.” Sara let go and cried.

“Calm down.”

“I can’t,” Sara exclaimed and kissed her violently, grabbed the life out of her then stepped on it. “Fuck, I can’t, I can’t.” Sara pushed her hand in her sister’s underwear and Tegan could do nothing but cry.

She was scared and shocked but she also felt happy that she was finally being touched.

Sara pushed two fingers inside and it hurt even more than Jeremy and his stupid penis. Tegan cried heavily.

“When morning comes, will you still be here?” Sara asked as she moved her fingers. “After this, will you still be here? Do you want to be here with someone who’s doing this to you? Will you pack again and think of leaving me? Will you ever forget this stupid mistake?” Sara’s crying soul felt too heavy and dark not to cry upon.

Tegan’s pleasure began to build but her sister’s misery made her unable to stop her tears. She hugged her sister as their bodies melted together and molded a new form of intimacy, turmoil, and connectedness. They cried and kissed and fucked and felt. It was wonderful as Tegan came and Sara watched, but after, both wanted to kill the other and both hit the other and wept.

A song formed in the back of her head. Tegan wrote a song as Sara despised herself and sat thinking of what to do next.

_“Don't panic, my bags are staying unpacked,”_ Tegan sang softly, careful not to increase the damage with more noise in the middle of the night. They were lucky they were alone on this floor.

Sara was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing to disappear as Tegan could see while she sat on the floor and held her guitar; while she tried to play a silly song to ease her sister’s pain and mend her sorry heart.

_“And don't worry, I've got nowhere else to be…”_

Sara’s sniffling was louder than the guitar or that’s how Tegan heard it. They looked at each other, though the room was dim.

_“When the morning comes will you still be here?_

_When the morning comes will I still be here?”_

Sara shook her head and choked on a suppressed sob. Tegan shushed. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispered. “I’m not going anywhere.”

_“And don't cry, there's nothing to worry about_

_And don't whine, we've all heard about it before_

_And don't go looking for mistakes in me_

_I don't think I can take anymore…”_

Sara touched herself as she listened to her sister’s melody and her sister’s words. Tegan watched Sara’s fingers moving inside her sweatpants. Streaming tears wouldn’t stop staining Sara’s cheeks and choked whimpers wouldn’t stop leaving her lungs. Sara was hurting herself, Tegan could tell. She was hurting herself and Tegan didn’t like it.

So Tegan moved where her sister’s body lay. She pulled her hand quickly and Sara moaned. “Shh,” Tegan tried to assuage her cries and anxiety. “Don’t hurt yourself. Nothing’s worth hurting yourself.”

“I don’t think you get it.” Tegan wanted to touch her but didn’t want to hurt her more. She wished she could touch her, too. “This is incest and I did something terrible to you.”

“Can I touch you, Sara?” Tegan felt that sometimes she needed to be the older sister, and that situation required her to be the stronger one. “Because I don’t think you get it either. I don’t think you realize how much I need and want this and how good it makes me feel.”

“It’s wrong,” Sara insisted. Tegan tried to get Sara rid of her clothes but the room was too dark and Sara was too shaky. “What about Jeremy?”

Sara’s scent was too vibrant and too strong, Tegan was not used to it. “This is different, Sara.” She spread Sara’s legs and tried to look at Sara’s cunt but could only see a patch of dark hair covering the entire area. She didn’t know what to do and how to do it.

“You don’t have to,” Sara mumbled. Tegan kept staring, trying to figure it out. “Are you disgusted by the hair? I…I will shave.”

“No.” She looked up with tears in her eyes. “I just don’t know how to do it. I’m scared.”

“You know how. I taught you.”

“I wanna go down on you.”

“Oh.”

Tegan wiped her tears. “Jeremy is my boyfriend. You’re my sister. We helped each other and love each other and it’s normal what we’re doing, as long as nobody knows about it. We used to kiss when we were young. It’s normal.”

“It’s not,” Sara said. “Don’t eat me out. Just get my clit. I’m already close.”

Tegan felt relieved that Sara told her not to do what she was not sure if she could do. She wanted to, but was scared and uncomfortable. Touching Sara’s clit felt like touching her own and touching Sara’s breasts felt the same way in the dream. Sara’s breasts were soft and her nipples were small and hard. Tegan kissed her sister and made her come.

“Did you have sex with Jeremy again?” Sara asked after sex.

“Not yet.” Tegan covered both of them in her blanket. “He thinks I’m menstruating and doesn’t want to even kiss me.”

“Ugh, men.”

“I scared him off, I guess.”

“I wouldn’t mind fucking a menstruating girl, why are men so fragile?” Tegan didn’t answer her. That was strange to hear.

“Sara?”

“Yes?”

“I’m always there when you need me, even if I’m dating Jeremy, you know that.”

“Yes.” Sara sniffled.

“Incest is bad, maybe, but we’re different, okay? We’re twins.”

“Yes,” Sara whispered. “We should sleep.” Tegan kissed her nose and Sara giggled a little.

“I miss your laugh. Don’t be sad. It will feel okay, I promise you.”

 

 

 

 


End file.
